


i miss you, i'm sorry

by lavenderss



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: After S3, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Long-Distance Relationship, Post-Canon, also I know Rebeka is spelled with a K and it is pissing me off how do you fix that?, because they deserve to be happy so much it hurts :((, i got sad so i wrote this, reunion version 2345678987
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:55:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27369883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderss/pseuds/lavenderss
Summary: "Fucking shit, Samu," Guzmán hits the table with the palm of his hand. "This has to stop.""What?" Samuel snorts. He's in for an intervention, unsolicited advice, a pep-talk, and the worst thing is, he doesn't even knowwhy."Stop being hung up on Carla. You have to move on.""I wasn't thinking about Carla," he replies truthfully, but his truth is useless. And he's annoyed, because even though hewasn'tthinking about Carla, now he naturallyis.OR: Carla's in London, Samuel is in Madrid, and Guzmán is tired of his friend's depressed whining bullshit.
Relationships: Carla Rosón Caleruega/Samuel García Domínguez, Guzmán&Samuel friendship, Samuel&Omar friendship
Comments: 111
Kudos: 102





	1. i know you love her but it's over, mate

**Author's Note:**

> here we go again (my my, how can i resist them? i CAN'T)  
> anyway, yeah. noone asked for another Carla/Samuel reunion scene with minimal variation, but i still delivered. number of chapters? unknown. i don't know. theres never enough carla/samuel bullshit if you ask me, no matter how repetitive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title of this chapter is from be alright by dean lewis. i can SO imagine samuel thinking about carla with this song in the background, i mean it's about cheating but fits well anyway.

The beer is lukewarm and tastes, to be honest, completely shitty, but Samuel doesn't really mind or care. He stares at the liquid behind the brown glass without the slightest intention to pick up the bottle and take another sip. The overwhelmingly loud club music isn't even reaching his brain, not more than some annoying white noise. Maybe planes taking off? That's what he always imagines under the term _white noise_. Because _planes are white_. It is a primitive concept for sure, but he's never been on a plane nor actually stepped anywhere close to an airport. What does that feel like, flying? He can't even begin to imagine the surreal feeling of knowing you're defying gravity and floating through the air. How do planes work? Of course, aerodynamics, bla-

“Fucking shit, Samu, this has to stop,” Guzmán hits the table with his palm, making Samuel snap out of his technological train of thought instantly.

“What?” he snorts. Guzmán is looking at him with that characteristic arrogant _know-it-all-about-you_ look. Samuel knows he's in for an intervention, unsolicited advice, a pep-talk, and the worst thing, he doesn't even know why.

“Stop being hung up on Carla. You have to move on,” Guzmán explains loudly like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

“I wasn't thinking about Carla,” Samuel replies truthfully, but his truth is useless in this case. Predictably, Guzmán raises his eyebrow.

“Yeah. And I'm the queen of England.”

“I _wasn't_ thinking about Carla,” Samuel repeats, this time a hundred-percent more indignant, because he truly hadn't been thinking about Carla, but _now_ he naturally has to.

Guzmán gulps his beer and leans back nonchalantly. He's enjoying the pissing-off session. “Sure. If so, tell me why you've been sitting on your ass like a blob of depression instead of trying to get out and pick up a girl. Which is, by the way, supposed to be the reason we're here.” Each of his vowels is a bit longer than it should be, but Samuel hasn't been keeping up with the speed at which the blond has been ordering.

“What about Nadia?” Samuel tries unsuccessfully. These conversations with Guzmán always follow the same script.

A rueful glint flashes over the blond's face before he scoots over to the apprehensive Samuel, throws his arm over his shoulder and explains: “We're young, Samu. What are we supposed to do, spend our best years-”

“-hung up on girls on the other side of the ocean?” Samuel recites Guzmán's favourite line flatly.

“Exactly,” the blond ignores his tone and goes on with his monologue. Judging by the way his tongue slippers over the words, Samuel deduces that Guzmán is way more drunk than he thought, and definitely more than he should be. “Those are the words of wisdom, my friend!”

“Amazing,” Samuel retorts sarcastically, moving away from Guzmán and his alcohol breath. “I think we should get going.”

“We're definitely not leaving. The hottest chicks haven't even arrived yet,” Guzmán protests resolutely and interrupts Samuel's process of untangling their limbs and standing up. “We're getting laid tonight!”

“I think you're confusing _laid_ with _loaded_ ,” Samuel mutters, but Guzmán doesn't seem fazed by his sarcasm.

“No, no, no, Samu,” the boys finger fences with an invisible opponent under Samuel's nose, “ _You're_ wrong! It's both!”

Then he bursts out into a fit of hysterical laughter, slapping himself on the knees, and Samuel lets his head fall onto his hand and mentally curses at himself for letting Guzmán drag him into a bar on a school night.

“But you're not too good at either,” Guzmán observes accurately and tries to wave for a waiter, but obviously, there's not one in sight, because they're not in a restaurant. “We're gonna have to fix that!”

“We have school tomorrow,” Samuel repeats buzzkillingly. “And I'm not in the mood.”

“Samu,” Guzmán addresses him tenderly, affection bursting from his eyes. “I love you, but you're a fucking idiot. Being depressed about a girl on the other side of the Atlantic and refusing to have fun because of her is just bullshit.”

Samuel defeatedly picks up his beer, turns it bottom up and groans. “Happy?”

“Not completely,” Guzmán cuts his hopes swiftly. “Now, we're gonna find you a girl that's palpable, and not a distant dream on a different continent-”

“Carla isn't on the other side of the ocean,” Samuel can't hold it in anymore. The sentence has been trying to fight out of his throat for the entire ten-minute conversation, and now it finally has, despite the fact that he was really trying to prove his point and this is the most effective counter-argument.

“What?”

“Carla's not in America like Nadia. She's in London,” he sighs, capitulating.

“True. And?”

“Just that she's not that far away,” Samuel shrugs under Guzmán's pointed look. “That's all.”

“Yeah,” Guzmán plays with the umbrella from his flamingo-coloured cocktail pensievely. “It's not like it makes a difference.”

Now's the time when Samuel wishes he'd have a crate of that disgusting premium beer on hand. He doesn't, so he settles on the next best option. “I'm gonna get another drink.”

“That's my boy!” Guzmán yells jovially, his hype returning. “I'm coming with you!”

They each do three shots, which are just unnecessary on Guzmán's part, and encouraged by the ethanol floating in their system, join a group of college girls on the dance floor.

Samuel's finally tipsy enough to half-enjoy himself and the thirty minutes that pass before Guzmán takes off with one of them – short, brown-haired, _pushy_ – don't feel like eternity.

That doesn't mean he doesn't feel liberated when his friend gets lost in the mass of bodies and he can finally leave – school will be absolute hell tomorrow – and the illegal drunk bike ride home with the cold wind grazing his cheeks feels freeing.

And a little bit sad.

¤

The next day at school, everything returns back to normal – Guzmán is his usual charming self despite his hangover, while Samuel is his worst one because of it.

That day, his mood drop demonstrates itself in the most unfortunate way.

“It doesn't matter, you know,” he idiotically digs his own grave while choking on three-days-old pasta sauce. “She left.”

Guzmán gives an exasperated sigh. “If this helps your moaning, I'll eat your mush and you can have my salmon.” He ignores Samuel's fork aggressively stabbing into his noodles, tearing them apart and ultimately scraping the plastic container. “Seriously, I'd be depressed too if I ate this every day for lunch _and_ dinner.”

“She never gave a shit about me,” Samuel continues stubbornly. “I just don't get the point. Like, in June, she came to me at the club, then Polo showed up and the next thing I know, boom, she's leaving.”

“But the salmon is worse than usual today,” Guzmán critically dissects the gray-tinted meat. “It looks dead. And not the good kind of dead.”

“I just don't get why she'd come to me all happy at first, and then told me that,” Samuel's fork tips over the wall of the container and tomato purée splashes the grey desk. “I mean, if that was what she was planning on telling me, I just don't get why she was so happy about it. I mean, I know why she was happy, but why would she come to tell me? _Hey, I hate you, I'm glad I'm leaving you here?_ Is that it? Like, seriously?”

“At least the cous-cous isn't overcooked today, although I'm not sure I'm a fan of the lemon undertone,” Guzmán picks up a few grains on his fork and Gordon-Ramsay-style inspects them at eye level. “Although it does add freshness-”

“Wow, you have such problems,” Samuel gnarls, picking up his fork from the table and very unhygienically stabbing into a noodle. “Just tragic. Call your mommy, she'll send you a plane so that you can go catch your own salmon in Alaska. Maybe you'll even be able to kill it yourself, so that it's _correctly_ dead.”

“See, it's capable of conversation,” Guzmán retorts ironically. “I thought the only topic you could talk about is your pathetic not-relationship.”

“What would I do without your support,” Samuel strikes back; his hangover's getting the best of him. “This is just the kind of friendship I need.”

“Yeah, idiot, this _is_ the type of friendship you need. I'm sick of you moping around and analyzing the five sentences Carla told you after months of dating another guy like they mean something, just to immediately say they don't! Fine, I got it in the summer, but since you refuse to do anything about it- Like, either try to talk to her, or don't talk _about_ her and move on, because this is not gonna get you anywhere!”

Samuel scowls before stubbornly bowing into the pasta.

“I know it sucks, and I know it hurts. But really, Samu, all I'm trying to do is help you,” Guzmán's voice softens. “And since you haven't contacted her, you've picked to move on, right? So, just trust me. It's gonna get better.”

Samuel sighs heavily, lifts up his head and is met with Guzmán's genuine smile. “Sorry not all of us have private chefs or the money to buy the overpriced school shit without additives,” he utters bitterly. “And since I bought that chicken with salmonella, I'm trying to stay away from meat.”

Guzmán snorts, lip curling up. “I'll pinch in for your food budget. This is a disgrace.”

They go on a _burger date_ after school. It's nice, because Samuel gets to eat something he didn't cook. He has to practically inhale the burger because he has to make some deliveries in the evening, but he's hungry, so it's not a problem. The real problem is Guzmán trying to get him to go on a _road trip_ on the weekend when he finds out that he's not working.

“How many times do I have to tell you that it's the only time I'll get in the next two weeks to study,” Samuel repeats for the gazillionth time inbetween taking huge bites. Nobody needs to know that what he, in fact, wants to do with his free weekend is stay in bed and sleep for seventy-five percent of the day, maybe with short pauses for Avengers. He doesn't think he remembers what it feels like to be well-rested, and he'd like to re-find out.

“Seriously, Samu, stop being such a fucking bore. The exams are in a _month_. I'm picking you up on Saturday.”

“No.”

“Yes,” Guzmán nods with the stubborn pout of a five-year-old girl who was told that she can't wear her princess dress to a wedding. “No discussion.”

“Well, then I'm just not gonna open the door,” Samuel shrugs, finishes his burger and checks his buzzing phone. “Shit. They need me early.”

“They can't let you know ten minutes before-

“I have to go,” Samuel cuts him off decisively, because a discussion about the working conditions of minimum-wage employed high school students does not fit into his agenda. “Thanks. I'll pay you back once I get my payroll. They're late.”

“As always,” Guzmán growls, but all that gains him is a pointed look from Samuel before he's out the door.

The _I'm not a charity case_ look.

Well. Too bad.

¤

Samuel lets out a number of loud curses when his doorbell rings on a Saturday morning. He knows of one person who might have been so foolish to carry out his threats of them hanging out. He's had multiple (okay, two) people attempt to busy him on the weekend, but he somehow knows which one is standing in front of his door.

“Fuck you, Guzmán.”

“Good morning to you too,” the blond grins, unaffected. Maybe even happy. “Pack a suitcase, quick. My car's parked where it shouldn't be.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” Samuel exhales heavily.

“Yes, you are. Quick. And pack something hole-less, please. I don't need the extra show of skin.”

“Fuck you,” Samuel repeats hopelessly and turns back to walk to his room to get a bag and a few t-shirts. “I hate you.”

“You mean you love me,” Guzmán sings, his overly good mood either disproportionate with what he has planned for their trip, or they're going to like, Disneyland. “Come on, hurry.”

Samuel hurries, if anything then because he needs to get Guzmán out of his apartment before he notices either of the incriminating evidence against him: the unpaid bills on the kitchen table, the Avengers movies by the TV, the sheets that haven't been washed for way too long, or that little doodle of a silhouette that suspiciously reminds him of Carla on his grocery check. 

“So,” he starts when he's sitting in the passenger seat, mostly just for Guzmán to stop humming Jingle Bells, “Where are we going?”

“It's a surprise,” Guzmán quips and skillfully drifts into a curve. “Whoops.”

“Lovely surprise, getting killed on a fine Saturday morning,” Samuel groans. “And I'm hungry.”

Yes, he's a five-year-old brat. That's how Guzmán and him work – one of them is acting like a whiny child, the other one is keeping him in check. Swap positions. Repeat until exhaustion, then repeat once more.

“I'll get you something once we get there,” Guzmán, taking his role of a caring, patient father too seriously, ruffles his hair. “I promise it'll be worth it.”

A few minutes pass before Samuel's curiosity reaches unbearable levels. “Seriously, where are we going?”

“You'll see.”

“Just tell me!”

“Oh, Samu,” Guzmán shrugs smugly, “Didn't they teach you in school that patience is the greatest virtue of a man?”

Samuel frustratedly rolls down the window, sticks his head out of it and ignores Guzmán's “It's cold, dude!”. He practically kidnaps him against his own will and then refuses to tell him where they're going-

-this _is_ actually starting to sound an awful lot like a kidnapping.

“If you're doing this for the money, trust me, there's noone to pay ransom for me,” he draws his head back into the car – it _is_ cold, damn it – and strikes Guzmán a glance full of irony. “You might as well kill me now and spare yourself of the trouble.”

“Cracking jokes, that's how I like you,” Guzmán gives him a wide smile. Samuel has to give it to him – he's persistently resisting his best efforts to annoy him. He might as well brighten up a little, because this is actually nice of Guzmán – he knows enough that his friend is not a skinflint when it comes to trips. And he'd be lying that a thought of an AirBnB with a rooftop pool or something wasn't daunting.

“We're here,” Guzmán interrupts his thought process.

_Oh._

“You're not serious,” Samuel says flatly, not believing his eyes. “You said a road trip, not an _air_ trip.”

“Same thing,” Guzmán waves off nonchalantly and, to Samuel's relief, manages to successfully park inbetween two cars without any dull sounds. “Get off.”

Samuel is so flabbergasted that the only thing he's capable of is throwing his sports bag over his shoulder and following Guzmán into the terminal like an obedient puppy, but once they step into the main hall packed with important-seeming businessmen and families with screeching children and backpackers, the reality settles in. “Guzmán,” he speaks lowly, eyes anxiously darting over the luggage check-in counters, overpriced cafés and rushing airport workers, “This is insane.”

“What? It's literally faster than a road trip,” Guzmán brushes off his worries. “I promise, it'll be worth it.”

“It's not that,” Samuel speaks to his shoes. “It's- I've never flown before.”

“Shit.” Guzmán seems momentarily struck, lips slightly apart, but his smile returns a few seconds later, albeit a reluctant one. “Oh, don't worry, it's not hard. You only have a carry-on, so basically all you need to do is go through the customs, and-”

“Wait, wait, wait-” Samuel starts to panic as his not-working brain finally grasps the uncomfortable signs and puts them together. “Why don't _you_ have a bag?”

“Well,” Guzmán exhales heavily, eyes, however, still glistening with excitement, and pushes his chin up to speak loudly and ceremoniously. “Because you are going to London to see Carla!”

“WHAT?!”

If there were pigeons on the airport roof, they must've flown off. If not, the people in their near distance have definitely turned around and are staring at Samuel-turned-statue with mildly aggravated curiosity.

“Yeah. And since you've never flown before, you should get going. Here's your information. Bye!”

Only once Guzmán is ten steps away, Samuel finally snaps out and catches up on him. “Are you _insane_? I can't fly to London to see _Carla_!”

“Samu,” Guzmán turns around irritatedly, which Samuel finds ironic, because he's the only one with a right to be irritated here, “Yes, you can. And you are. The flight ticket is non-refundable, and I know how much you hate wasting money, so you're _gonna_ go, if only because of that.”

“How much was the ticket, anyway?” Samuel freezes. “Shit, Guzmán, I can't afford-”

“Shut the fuck up and go the other way,” Guzmán instructs him with his _I-won't-take-your-shit_ tone. “Through customs. To see the _love of your life_.”

“Stop making fun of me,” Samuel grumbles desperately on the verge of panic. “This is- I can't- I've never- Besides, I don't even know where she lives!”

“That's what phones are for,” Guzmán points out pragmatically. “Text her. Like you should've done months ago.”

Samuel opens and closes his mouth, positive he looks like an ugly blob fish, incapable of finding words. Guzmán nods and shows him a last piece of mercy. “You know she goes to King's, right? So, if you're really that clueless, you might as well start there.”

And he leaves Samuel to his fate.

¤

He's not stupid enough to google _King's business school address_ and stand in front of the gate or something. He's sitting in front of _his_ gate, waiting for his flight, and realizes that the best way to go around this catastrophe is to text Carla as soon as possible, meaning: _now._

_Hi, Carla. I'm coming to London. Can I see you?_

Yeah, that won't work.

_I'll be in London in three hours. Long story. Are you free?_

Yeah, if she has plans, namely outside the city, all of Guzmán's schemes are in vain.

_It's Samuel. I'm-_

What if she's deleted his number?

Fuck, what if she _has?_

He takes a deep breath, bites his lip nervously and promises to himself that he'll send the next message he types.

_Hi, Carla. It's Samuel, I'm apparently coming to London. I'll be there by one, I hope we can see each other. I miss you. Samuel._

He hits send and his head at the same time. He stares at the text and feels his heartbeat quiver. _I miss you? Apparently coming to London? I'll be there by one?_ Literally how stupid can he be?

“Fuck,” he punches his thigh frustratedly, already used to the weird stares from the so-composed other travelers calmly reading their BusinessInsiders So what? They don't know his fucked-up situation.

_OK. What time does your flight land? Are you flying via Heathrow? And what terminal? I could pick you up, it's quite complicated._

It takes Samuel more than a minute of staring at the letters on the display before they start making sense. _OK._ What?

It's so _Carla_ to write _OK_ after he's just told her that he'll be in her city in two and a half hours.

 _I have no idea,_ he texts back. After a more thorough inspection of his ticket – _boarding pass_ , he adds: _actually, it lands at 12.25._

 _OK_ , she writes again. _See you then._

 _OK_ , he texts back. Apparently, that's how they communicate now. Everything is _OK_.

Everything is _not_ OK. Guzmán could've told him that flying an airplane feels like riding a whale during a tropical storm. He has no idea how he manages to survive without the use of the vomit paper bag. The woman next to him shoots him a sympathetic glance. “First time?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah,” the woman giggles. “London, huh? Why'd a young man like you go to London in its most depressing time of the year?”

“You're not from there, are you?” Samuel might be pretty good at English by now thanks to Las Encinas, but due to his limited experience with foreigners, he's not an expert at accents.

“God, no,” the woman laughs again. “American, born and raised. Is it that obvious?”

Samuel shrugs. “Not sure. This is my first time flying, and one of the only times of talking with someone from a different country than Spain, so I don't know much, really.”

“You're good at English, then!” the woman encourages him. “And trust me, you'll get used to it,” she gestures around, assuring him in a motherly way, which stings as a blurry memory of his mum's face surfaces. “Are you going to London to study?”

“Um, I'm still in school here, actually, but I'm going to see my-” he pauses awkwardly. The woman stares at him with a sense of anticipation and he feels awkwards just not saying anything, so he coughs and says: “Old classmate. She, uh, goes to university there.”

“I see,” the woman raises an eyebrow ever-so-slightly. “Let me assure you, you don't need to be nervous. I'm sure your girlfriend can't wait to see you.”

Samuel turns his head to look out of the window ( _bad idea_ ) to hide the rouge climbing up his cheeks. He doesn't say that _it's not like that,_ even though it definitely isn't.

¤

The London Heathrow airport would be a much more daunting mass of people and directions and smells if his nerves weren't so wrecked because of Carla and he had the mental capacity to overthink where to go. This way, he doesn't get lost once, simply follows the yellow arrows, and is spat out in a semi-underground parking lot in front of very-important-looking drivers holding signs with the names of very-important-people.

And a blonde in a designer coat on the side.

Samuel's breath gets stuck in his lungs. Carla looks amazing, obviously, but that's not the reason – the reason is that she's five meters away. From him. He could literally touch her, two seconds from _now_ if he dared.

She lifts her head from being focused on her phone and notices him. Her eyes look him up a little and he suddenly realizes how stupid he must look, just standing there, doing nothing, so he takes a few weak steps towards her while she gracefully slides her phone into her purse and makes the final one.

They stare at each other for two seconds before Samuel finally manages to get out a stuttery: “Hi.”

“You're here,” Carla says, big doe eyes on him, the same disbelief he's feeling stamped onto her face, but ten times less intense.

“Um. Yeah,” Samuel nods stupidly. “Uh.”

“Why?” A small crease forms between Carla's eyebrows, which somehow makes Samuel snap back into not-idiot mode.

“I don't really know, to be honest,” he blurts out – okay, mabe the celebration of him regaining at least a part of his brain functions was preliminary. “Um, I mean. It's a long story. Are you busy? I'm sorry.”

Wow, he even _rhymes_ now.

“No, I'm not,” Carla answers plainly, calming his clusterfuck of thoughts a little. “We can go to my place so you can leave your bag there and you can think about what you're doing here.” He registers the subtle irony underneath her words, and doesn't blame her one bit.

“Sounds good, yeah,” he gets out heavily, realizing that his gaze was nervously ticking between all of her body parts the whole time, and finally focuses on maintaining proper and not-creepy eye contact. It's just that it's – _Carla_. Right in front of him, with her hair and dimples and striking green eyes and long legs and lean neck and graceful hands and – if he doesn't make sure she's there, all of her, she might start evaporating. “I'm really sorry for just – popping up on you like that. It was kinda – yeah. Unplanned.”

In his books anyway. How long Guzmán has had an idea for this malice is a whole different story.

“It's okay,” Carla's unaffected, one-tone voice starkly contrasts with his nervous rambling. “I'm happy to see you, Samuel.”

Then she stands up on her tiptoes – more to get over the barrier of the sports bag inbetween them instead of it being necessary because of his height, ouch – and presses a dainty kiss on his cheek. It's kind of shy, kind of fluttery, the kind of Carla he had the priviliege of only knowing for a few months but the kind that he'll remember forever – and it makes his _stomach_ flutter, too. She smells like roses and coffee.

“Well,” he starts, suddenly very aware of his undoubtedly horrid appearance, which would've already been bad even without a nauseating flight and three hours between airports, “I'm happy to see you too.”

He offers Carla a curl of his left lip-corner with a small nod and she takes it, adds a half-smile on her own.

He doesn't want to jinx it, but this might actually not go as terribly wrong as he thought.


	2. don't look back in anger, i heard you say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiii <3 here's the next chapter, the title is from an oasis song, the lyrics don't really match but the title does. thanks for reading, commenting and all of your kudos, ily all! and feel free to drop in my tumblr inbox/messages i love talking to people theree <3 (and i'm bored af because we're on lockdown and online school might actually kill me)

When she woke up that Saturday morning, Carla only felt an astonishing _nothing_. Astonishing, but normal – she stood up from her bed, made it, went to her kitchen to make coffee.

It was bound to be another boring weekend – not counting her espresso with a splash of milk, gym would be the first thing in the morning, then schoolwork, schoolwork, add in a quick salad for lunch – something she'll make herself, because it's unbelievable how bad the food in Britain really is – more schoolwork. Ignore a few texts. If she feels up for it, go to a bar, get very drunk and let a slightly-above-average grad student take her home.

Her phone had a different plan from the start. Once she saw the name that popped up with the annoying notification sound, she dropped her cup and hot liquid spilled all over the floor and her feet.

"Shit," Carla cursed, less because of the burn and more because of the sender of the text, and she didn't even know what was coming for her.

She almost spilled her second attempt at her morning drink onto the cleaned-up floor when she could finally look at the message.

_Samuel is coming to London._

That was enough for the rest of her uninmpressive plans to go down the drain.

_Samuel is coming to London._

She stared at last lone leaf still holding onto the branch right in front of her kitchen window for an embarrassingly long time before she could come up with an answer, get a response. And realize that this is _real_ , and freak out.

And now, here she is. If anything, Samuel is just as freaked out as her, which she thinks he shouldn't have a right for, because he's the one who literally announced his visit at nine in the morning. But, _c'est la vie_. At least they're both in the same boat, for better or worse. She's not sure which.

"So. Um. How's London?" Samuel asks. It's so refreshing to hear Spanish in all of this rain and cold and people she doesn't know, she could kiss him just for that.

She has to firmly reprimand herself to snap out of her stupid thoughts, because this is not the time.

"Good," she says neutrally, because that's what people say when someone asks them about their experience with studying abroad. "I finally feel like I'm not completely lost here." As to confirm her words, she has to nudge him in the right direction – he's almost passed the metro entrance. "In here."

"We're taking the _train_?" Samuel shoots her an incredulous glance.

"The _tube_ ," she corrects him automatically, rolling her eyes. "Don't act so surprised."

It seems to shut him up – like an obedient little lamb, he follows her to the escalator and lets her pay for his ticket. "Um. Thanks. I really don't have any pounds, but I'll pay you back once-"

"You're not a very prepared tourist," she points out flatly, the two of them reaching the platform. She might be a good observer, but she still hasn't figured out what the heck is happening _here,_ so she decides to investigate. Her curiosity is unbearable.

"Yeah," Samuel sighs heavily – seriously, with this attitude of his, she's close to thinking that somebody died – and apologizes for the twentieth time. "I'm not, yeah."

A train stops in front of them, she watches the sea of people flow out and lets the opposite current suck them into the system of London underground. "So, would you tell me what you're doing here already?"

"It's a long story," Samuel repeats again, settling in a seat, and it's kind of driving Carla insane. If he's here to stare at her with an indecisive look, he probably should've thought about coming here at all.

A stupid, quick impulsive thought that ironically calls out Carla on her lie, _honey,_ _you'd fly to Antarctica if he was there and you could see him for two minutes_ , isn't helping her situation.

"The ride will take an hour," she prompts him rather impatiently. "Pretty sure you can fit it in."

"An _hour_?" Another raised eyebrow from her and he finally gets it. "Yeah, I guess."

"I'm listening," Carla nudges him. Her eyes widen as her head tilts and brushes his curls after their shoulder bump. _God._

"Well," she might actually get to find out, _wow_ , "Guzmán practically kidnapped me, drove me to the airport without telling me where we're going, then dropped me off in front of customs, gave me a ticket to London and said that I'm flying here to see you."

" _That_ was the long story?" Carla shakes her head, unsure what to make of it. "That took like five seconds."

"That was the short version," Samuel mumbles, not looking like he's particularly keen on continuing, but that doesn't stop Carla in the slightest.

"You hyped it up so much, give me the longest version you have."

"Uh," he trails off, gaze examining the dirty wagon. "We're on a train."

"The _tube_ ," Carla loses her patience. "And I don't care. _Speak._ "

"Basically, all I've been doing since you left was whine about you and Guzmán got tired of my shit so he forced me to go here," Samuel blurts out, eyes on the soles of his dirty off-brand sneakers. "You're really bossy, you know? Happy now?"

Based on the wide gleam that has made its way to Carla's face and is refusing to leave, she thinks _yes_. She bites her lip triumphantly and, encouraged by her findings, puts her palm on Samuel's thigh. He instantly stiffens against her touch, and she shivers.

Maybe this is all wrong. Maybe it's not wrong, maybe she's just interpreting it wrong. Maybe he's really only here because of Guzmán, and maybe he's finally realized that she's not worth it.

Just when she wants to pull back, she feels his fingers intertwining with hers.

"I missed you," Samuel speaks over the announcement of the next stop, but Carla still catches it. "Not just during the summer, but – all the time."

"I know," she says simply, leaning her head on his shoulder. "I missed you too."

The door closes while someone's leg is in it and people start trying to push it apart while some woman yells.

"You don't know how much," Carla adds, her words gaining a tint of a heavy sincerity that wasn't there before.

She feels Samuel smile and brush his ear against her temple as he rests his head by leaning closer to her. "Do you still wanna have this conversation on the _tube_?"

Carla chuckles, feeling his low content murmur under her ribs. "I guess you're right for once," she teases him tenderly. "We'll talk once we get back to my place."

"Yeah, I'm right," he agrees, obviously pleased, and pecks the top of her head. In response, her whole body tingles.

She's forgotten how easy it felt to be with Samuel.

She's forgotten how it felt to be happy.

¤

She searches for her keys, lets Samuel into her apartment and while she's locking the security lock from the inside, she feels his hesitance as he's undoubtedly realized what this means.

He's never been inside of her house, or apartment, or anwhere she lived. The closest he came was when he ambushed her in the garden that one day about six months ago, which she really doesn't want to think about.

She knows she'll have to, which makes her stomach twist. She distracts herself by being a good host. "Do you want anything to drink, or eat?"

Samuel makes three nervous taps with his foot in the rhythm of Beethoven's _Ode an die Freude_ , licks his lip and mumbles: "Yeah, actually. I'm sorry, I haven't eaten anything today."

Carla needs him to stop apologizing unless he wants her to push a ball of kitchen cloth into his mouth. "No problem," she says simply, takes off her shoes and prompts him to follow her into the kitchen. She can feel him observing every square centimeter of her habitance.

"Nice place," Samuel says awkwardly. He's such a bad liar.

"Thanks, I hate it," Carla agrees dryly. All of it is steel and dark mahogany floors and it's so black, devoid of emotion, rigidly impersonal. (If she thinks about it, she _should_ like it, because that's how she's trying to be – devoid of emotion, attachment, tenderness. It might have to do something with the fact that she's failing miserably at it.)

Samuel attempts to stifle a chuckle but doesn't succeed; Carla turns her head, gives him a rare smile and he lights up like a Christmas tree. "In case you need to clear your doubts, I hate it too. Still better than my place, though."

"I kinda liked your place," Carla mumbles, cheeks red _(God)_ , and goes to inspect her fridge. Plenty of fresh vegetables - bell peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, that should be good. She starts to assemble her ingredients on the counter while the atmosphere shifts again.

It's Samuel who states the obvious. "You're gonna _cook_?"

"Don't act so surprised," Carla's only offended in speech, not in reality, because his assumptions were based on good reason. It's just that – she doesn't like takeout so much, okay? Going out to restaurants alone is depressing, eating michelin-star food reheated from aluminum boxes at home just adds onto the misery, and – yeah. She doesn't know.

Maybe cooking gives her something to do. Chopping vegetables is fun, when the sharpened knife slides perfectly through the skin and leaves little geometric shapes. It brings her a great sense of satisfaction.

Maybe she's a little bit of a psychopath.

"It's a pleasant surprise," Samuel says dumbfoundedly (she could practically taste another _I'm sorry_ in the air, and she's extremely grateful he hasn't let it out – otherwise, she might've been strangling him right now).

"Especially for me, since we're gonna eat something edible for once," she assumes ironically, washing her hands in the sink. When Samuel bumps into her and his hands brush hers under the waterstream a second later, she trembles.

"I wouldn't bet on that, since I'm gonna help you."

The smile that makes its way onto her face is rosy, uninhibitedly shy, and God, she feels like she's about to burst. She wants to kiss him right now.

Unfortunately, she still knows it's a bad idea. She looks up at his face, sees the same realization in his warm eyes and settles for: "I guess I'll have to risk it."

The smile hasn't left her face, even though she's supposed to be teasing him. The message kind of gets lost in translation, there – her mockery sounds like a loving compliment, all because Carla can't control her tone.

"Hopefully, your amazing culinary skills will balance out my mediocre ones," he replies, same tone, same expression, and Carla's about to throw all of her rationale out of the window, but he steps back and looks around the kitchen. "So. What can I do?"

She instructs him to peel the zucchini while she works on chopping up some peppers. Every sound in the kitchen is produced by mechanical cooking utensils or gentle shifts of the fabric of their clothes. It's astoundingly intimate; Carla's sure she's never done anything like this before.

"Done, boss," he tells her with a smirk, Carla lifts her eyebrow and shakes her head. "Well, since you're incapable of functioning without instructions, I'll tell you to cut it up."

"I'm sorry, I'm just an effective kitchen robot," he shrugs casually and turns back to his workspace.

¤

A few minutes later, Carla takes out a big pan, splashes a bit of olive oil and pours her slices of garlic, squares of bell pepper and halved cherry tomatoes. Samuel waits patiently before adding his zuccini and onions – _shit, onions_.

"Those were supposed to start cooking earlier on their own," Carla says, accusatory, even though it's her fault.

"Didn't want to question your cooking methods," he explains with a little nod. "I thought you were the one who knows best."

Carla licks her teeth, clicks her lips and decides: "It doesn't matter that much."

"Surely," Samuel nods cheekily. She slaps him lightly on the shoulder – _electric shock, butterflies_ – and tells him: "Put the water to boil, please."

She searches for a package of pasta in her cupboard, and when she finds it and sees Samuel stare at it like a deer in the headlights, she can't help but snort. "You don't _own_ carbohydrates."

"I'd never dare to suggest that, Ms. Jamie Oliver."

She gleams widely, amused and appreciative, and knows her eyes are radiating fondness ( _love_ ) just as much as his when he looks at her. She puts the pasta to boil while he mixes up the sauce a little, they wait in the kitchen, taking little steps here and there without really saying anything until the food is finished.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Carla confesses when she puts a leaf on basil on top of their penne mountains.

"I know."

They both _know._ What they mean, how they feel. How they never want it to end.

Carla lets him carry the plates to the couch while she picks her best wine (okay, she has three on her disposal, it's not that difficult). She carries two wine glasses by their stems and practically hops into the living room, giddy with joy.

They dig in; he eats at the speed of a drugged squirrel, he must've been super hungry. A comfortable silence spreads across the room. Carla pours them wine, so indescribably, unexplicably happy that her hand shakes because of it.

He's not paying much attention to her, so she lets him eat and focuses on her own food. Only when she realizes that the clinking of his fork has stopped and his eyes are definitely concentrated at one little point on the top of her head, she stops.

"Carla," Samuel weighs out every word, but they still sound honey-ed from his mouth. "What are we doing?"

_Seriously?_

"Eating," she tries very hard not to fully blast her annoyance. She also hopes that the freezing insecurity that's currently taking over her body isn't audible in her voice. "Don't you like it?"

They both know the second question wasn't concerned about the imperfect al-dente state of their pasta.

"Of course I do," Samuel admits, almost capitulatively. "But- I don't know. You make me really confused."

Carla exhales heavily. It's good on him that he's careful, because she was ready to give up every last piece of her self control and suck his soul out of him.

And he has a right to be. She realizes that.

"Well," she says lowly, eyes focused on the TV table. "Then ask."

It looks like he'll be the one to suck the soul out of _her_ tonight. It's certainly not a pleasant prospect.

Samuel sighs. "Carla-"

"That's not a question."

"It's not easy to communicate with you, especially when I have no idea where to start," he reteliates, a little defensively. Carla immediately backs off, forcing herself to look at him.

The eye-contact is infinitely serious. Samuel, somehow, senses that she'll speak, and doesn't say anything, just stares deep behind her pupils – like she needs to be even more nervous.

"I owe you an apology," she says finally, quiet but firm.

"Why?" A little crease forms between his eyebrows. Carla wants to smooth it out with her thumb and then kiss it, but that's only gonna happen after she gets through this.

God, maybe she knew why she'd left. This is so impossibly difficult.

"I never told you what happened between us," every word strips down a piece of her composure. "I hurt you a lot, and I did it on purpose. So, I'm sorry."

The final words are more like a whimper.

"Why?" Samuel asks unoriginally, the crease deepening.

"I was angry at first," Carla sorts through her noodles mechanically, trying very hard not to let her voice crack. "Really angry. More at myself than at you, because I let myself lose."

"Carla-"

"No, don't," she interrupts him. "It was a fair game. We both knew what the stakes were, and we both knew about our intentions. You were just better than me, stop apologizing."

"Ca-"

She gives him an impatient look. He shuts his mouth immediately. "I was so angry at myself because I let my feelings drive me. Because I'd become weak." She senses that he's itching to say something, so she rushes to her next sentence. "And the worst thing was, no matter your betrayal, I still couldn't stop. _Feeling_."

He gives out a little blow through his nose, a little relieved, a little apprehensive.

"Just like you forgave me, I forgave you," she says, feeling squeaky and blurry. Are those tears in her eyes? Shit. "We both did what we had to do, it was inevitable." A tear splashes on the shiny black edge of her table. "In my case, that came to mean staying away from you, because my dad-" She takes in a shaky breath, forces herself to lift her chin, swallows. Ignores the tear rolling down her cheek painfully slowly. "Well, basically, I couldn't let Christian number two happen."

It sounds dry, satirical. She didn't mean it like that, hopes he understands. "Especially because you were so much more important to me than Christian. Not that I don't regret horribly what I caused and what-"

She feels Samuel's hands wrapped around her back, transmitting warmth and comfort, and sniffles stiffly into his shoulder. "I-"

"I'm sorry, Carla," Samuel tells her, full of misplaced remorse, because she's the terrible one here.

If she needed one last push, that would be it. Her silent, noble, controlled crying turns into miserable sobs.

It would be horribly humiliating to break on someone's shoulder and stain it with snot and salt and misery. It probably is, but Samuel doesn't push back, just holds her tighter, and she can't bring herself to think about it.

There's something about crying that feels almost – magical. Purifying. Especially as Samuel holds her through it, softly repeating that _It's okay_.

In most cases, _It's okay'_ s don't work - because they tend to be lies. But in his arms, they sound different. They're a source of real comfort, because they have the potential to be true.

"And I dated Yeray because my dad forced me to, so that he'd sign a stupid contract," Carla hiccups one last time, tears slowing down a little. She knows that she has to say it now, because otherwise, she never will. "I never had any feelings for him. The only one that I had feelings for were you. You were the only thing I thought about for the last months-"

"Carla," Samuel says, voice twenty times more resolute, although his grip of her is still soft and tender. The contrast is a bit frightening. "Fuck, Carla."

"I'm sor-"

"Don't _ever_ apologize," he speaks strictly. She can't really see through tears, but knows exactly what he looks like right now. "This is horrible, Carla. Your parents literally sold you-"

Carla sobs, he instantly realizes and buries his face in her neck. "Shit. I'm so stupid, I didn't mean it like that. I'm sor-"

"It's certainly an unconservative comforting technique," a tiny hysterical bubble of laughter fights its way through Carla's cries. "But you're right."

He shakes in a miserable chuckle on his own. "Yeah," he affirms. "Just so much more fucked up."

She curls against his chest, grim thoughts raging in her head. Her tears have started to dry and only a lone shake sometimes goes through her body now, but that only makes everything clearer. She's told him everything. _Everything._

"I'm sorry," he says, fingers tracing her back tenderly. Contradictory to the normal response his soft touches should provoke, Carla stiffens. It's time. _I'm sorry for what happened, but I can't be with you. I'm sorry, but you're a much bigger mess than I thought. I'm sorry-_

"I should've realized how wrong everything really was," he finishes. "I knew you weren't fine. I should've tried harder to make you come clean, I shouldn't have let my anger blind me, and I-"

"It's not your fault," Carla whispers lowly into the rough fabric of his t-shirt. "I wouldn't have let you beat me at _suppressing feelings_ again."

"You're too good for your own good," Samuel sighs, brings his hand up to her hair and picks on strand by strand. "I wish I could've been there for you."

"You had enough problems on your own," Carla points out sadly. "Most of them that I've caused."

" _I_ caused most of them," Samuel fights. She kind of wants to burst out in tragic laughter – he's so set on making her into a good person. "You're not to blame for my shitty decisions."

Carla snorts darkly. "How's _Las Encinas_ , by the way?"

"Even worse without you," Samuel half-whispers. " _Much_ worse."

"Yeah, it must suck without murder accomplices," Carla throws in stupidly, but Samuel stiffens around her and draws her closer to him.

"This is probably the happiest day I've had since I came here," she changes her strategy. Maybe it's too soon to bring in comedic relief. "With you."

"I was such an idiot not to come sooner," Samuel whispers into her ear, rueful but grateful at the same time. "Carla-"

She knows what he's about to say, but she doesn't want him to blurt it out now. She's snotty and puffy and on a couch in an unflattering pose.

Call her stupid, but she wants it to be perfect.

"I'm gonna have to thank Guzmán so much," she says quickly, gets up and pulls him to sit. He looks a bit disappointed, a bit relieved. "Now, all of this crying has really spiked my appetite."

Samuel picks up his fork, examines her facial expression for a fair bit and when he comes to the conclusion that she seems recovered, announces: "I don't wanna brag, but my Lidl pasta sauce was better."

"In your dreams," Carla snorts.

"If anything, I had a good excuse to lick your face," he replies casually, waiting for her response.

That's her cue.

She practically throws away the fork and forces him down, climbs on top of him and purrs: "Cooking isn't the only thing I'm better at."

They almost fall off the couch when he flips them over, grinning in her face. "Good for me."

Then, he finally presses his lips on Carla's, soft but hungry, tender but desperate. She thinks she'll explode.

Nothing can ever compare to kissing Samuel. Nothing can ever compare to how he makes her feel like she's on fire, head spinning and dizzy and completely delusional and out of control.

The feeling is so beautiful she thinks she doesn't deserve it, but lets herself have it anyway.


	3. i'm right here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first off, i'm so sorry for the wait! i just had the biggest problem turning this chapter into something i'm at least half-content with putting on the internet. like i just kept editing and editing which never happens but icouldn't let it go, but now i just gave up and accepted that it's not gonna get any better. i'd say that the next will be written faster, but honestly, i don't know and i don't wanna lie hh.  
> the title is from _right here_ by chase atlantic

Samuel thinks he's in a dream. The thing is, he doesn't want to wake up from this, ever, even if it means he'll be in a pleasure-induced coma forever. Carla in his arms, Carla squirming under him, her hands on his neck, her stifled giggles in his mouth, hand grabbing on his hair, Carla somehow beating him in their power struggle and forcing him down again, Carla-

“Carla-” he pants immediately, has to use all of his limited willpower because it's diffusing into the thin air. The hot temperature is making the process so much faster, too - right in accordance with Fick's law.

That guy seriously couldn't have a worse name. He's trying to _evade_ this subject right now.

“What?” Carla bites her lip, a mixture of seduction and insecurity. He kind of loves that he has the power to strip her down of a bit of her self-confidence – it might sound bad, but it makes her more human.

 _He_ makes her nervous. It's infatuating.

“Should we really be doing this right now?” Samuel snaps out of his dangerous thoughts, because they all seem to spiral right back to where he's coming from. The way Carla's still sitting on his hips isn't making this better.

Carla groans, closes her eyes for a split second and opens them again to provide him with a 100% concentrate of annoyance. “What?”

“Uh,” Samuel momentarily loses his concentration as she wiggles – as if not on purpose, except he's too smart to believe that. That little minx. “Carla-” he puts his hands on her hips to stop her, but that doesn't really help. At all.

“What?”

 _You're gonna be the death of me,_ Samuel thinks. He deserves a medal for not flipping her over right now, anchoring her in place by his body and doing some-

_Fuck!_

“Carla!” he sits up resolutely – that just pushes her chest into his face and her butt is still on him, but at least it's a tiny bit more balanced with their eyes approximately at the same level. He finally manages to usurp the tiniest bit of concentration, look into her bright eyes and say: “I don't think this is a good idea.”

“Samuel, the last time I had sex was with this culinary student who no joke told me I was as hot as the flames from his flambé gun. I _need_ -”

The prospect of Carla saying she _needs him_ would've sounded nice if his brain didn't kind of activate all of the pain receptors across his body at _the last guy I had sex with_. The last guy she had sex with? How many were there? And how often-

“Samuel?”

_Focus, idiot!_

“I just don't think we should be doing this right now. You were crying five minutes ago,” he tries to mask what he's thinking about by concern. Not that he's _not_ concerned, but-

The spark of understanding in Carla's eyes lets him know that his lying skills haven't gotten better. “Samuel,” she starts, kind of tender, just a little bit annoyed. “It didn't mean anything. None of it ever did, because nobody can make me feel the way you do.”

Well, he'd be lying if he said that wasn't good to hear, but still. “What?” he plays dumb. “That's not what I was talking about at all.”

Carla gives him a pointed look that effectively shuts him up. “You're good?”

“Yeah,” he exhales heavily, his gaze laniding on her lips, and he's about to pull her closer.

This time, it's Carla who pushes back. “What about you?” she starts, all fake-conversational. “Do you still talk to Rebeka?”

He attempts not to let the insane amount of malicious happiness show in his voice. “Why?”

“I wasn't a dick to you, you could show me the same courtesy,” Carla barks bossily and leans back from him a little. Although she seems to be a hundred-percent serious, he can't help but be amused.

“You weren't a _dick_ to me?” he chuckles. “Well, yeah, anatomy kinda prevents that.”

“I'm being serious,” Carla's chin is pushed forward and her voice is full of rising anger. “Just answer me.”

“What,” he innocently twists a strand of her silky hair around his finger, not faking his enjoyment in the slightest. “Are you jealous?”

Carla snorts. “There's nothing to be jealous of,” she dismisses and immediately twitches – that might have to do something with either the fact that he's started to trace his fingers over her side (Carla's ticklish – she's also likely to kill anyone who'd foolishly reveal that secret) or the fact that her statement is a complete lie.

“If you don't tell me the truth, I can't tell you either,” Samuel provokes. It's fun to have the upper hand, and he is set to make the most of it since he's absolutely sure it won't last for long.

“Okay,” Carla straightens up rapidly, smoothing her hair over and regaining her unaffected voice. “Fine.”

There it is. “What?” Samuel asks as she starts to adjust her blouse, trying very hard not to sound as desperate as he feels.

Carla flashes him a smile. “You were right. We should probably take a little break.”

Not that they haven't been on one that stretched across several months.

“ _What?_ ” Samuel repeats, unable to hide his panic.

Carla chuckles lowly, satisfied. “Since we need to let the emotional trauma cool off, no? That's what you said?”

“Uh-huh?” Samuel nods, hypnotized as she bends down to the floor to put on a sock she'd somehow lost. How the fuck can she make putting on a sock look _hot_?

“Well,” Carla turns back to him, unashamedly triumphant. “Even though you're such a badly prepared tourist, you're in London for the first time.” She crinkles her nose. “So we should take advantage of the nice afternoon and get some sightseeing done.”

“This is a nice afternoon?” Samuel questions. Outside the window, the trees are swaing in the wind. Not _violently_ , but he wouldn't call it calm.

“Yeah,” Carla affirms. “Come on, get up. If you're nice, I'll buy you a souvenir. I guess it's your only option, since we've established that you're penniless.”

“What?” Samuel asks again, the word making it onto his personal list of _most used phrases while talking to Carla._

“Come on, hurry,” Carla nudges him rather impatiently; he still hasn't gotten up from the couch. “Sightseeing is the perfectly mundane completely traumaless thing.” She pulls on his hand, he goes hesitantly. “And once we're all done,” she leans a bit into his stride, lowering her voice, “You know, if you're still up for it and have decided that it is the right time-”

“Uh-” Samuel agrees dumbfoundedly. Carla's went off to the entrance hall and left him standing in the middle of the living room after she'd _accidentally_ brushed his crotch.

¤

“This is so over the top. I don't have even have AC in my apartment. But in this booth people spent thirty minutes in, the temperature can't fluctuate by more than a degree.”

Carla scrunches her nose, sparing him an annoyed look as he isn't admiring enough of the view from the London Eye. “Don't be so pretentiously poor.”

“I actually _am_ poor,” Samuel corrects her. “Scarcity sounds like a rumour, but it exists.”

“Shut up,” Carla groans annoyedly, slaps his arm lightly, grabs onto it after the hit, pulls herself closer and _kisses him_.

He's not only poor now, but his brain has turned into mush. That doesn't sound like he has good prospects for the future at all.

Carla brings her hand to his nape and brushes lightly with her thumb over the back of his neck, humming softly as she feels goosebumps grow under her touch.

“I told you you should've brought a scarf,” she whispers when she breaks the kiss just for a second, deep green eyes staring straight into his, and then presses their lips together again.

 _I love you_ , Samuel thinks. He momentarily freezes, stops cooperating, feels the word on the tip of his tongue.

Yeah. _Completely_ brainless.

It will be a miracle if he gets into law school.

“This is so straight out of a cliché romantic movie,” Samuel blurts out the first thought that comes up his mind – well, second. The first publishable one.

“Yeah, that's why I figured you'd like it,” Carla smirks mischeviously, biting her widely grinning lip. “You know, you were the one who cried during the final scene of E.T.”

“That's not a romantic comedy, that's heartbreaking,” Samuel argues, damning his shitty decision to watch TV with Carla at one am after one of their high school _hangouts._ Okay, fucking sessions.

“It was more of a horror,” Carla snorts. “The alien was so creepy.”

He stares at her, at a loss for words for a moment. “Don't _ever_ say that about E.T.”

Carla hides her teeth and controls her smile a little, her expression gaining a much more thoughtful look. She looks out their booth, watches the clouds pass by. (Seriously, how could she blame him for not admiring the view that's worth 30 pounds, if there isn't anything to be seen through the fog? She's the worst tourist guide on the planet, which fits pretty well if he thinks about it - considering he's the worst _tourist._ )

“It was the first time I stayed at your place overnight,” Carla speaks into the glass. “Well, not the first time, but the first time I didn't run off before you woke up.”

A smile attacks his lips, uneasy, hesitant. Carla sounded so melancholic. “Yeah. You're right.”

“You burnt the eggs,” she continues. Maybe a tad less blue.

“I did, yeah,” Samuel agrees. “You know, you were probably right about me having zero aptitude for cooking.”

“I ate them anyways,” she says, still staring into the fog. Samuel treads uncomfortably on the spot, which makes the booth shake a little. Carla doesn't seem to notice. “You know, nobody ever cooked for me. I mean, the maids. But nobody who wasn't paid to do it.”

“The people who get paid for it probably have to know what they're doing,” Samuel hums, approaching her. He wants to look at her face, see the blues or sparkles reflecting in her eyes, he wants to know what she's thinking. He wants to make her think about something else if whatever she's thinking right now is making her sad. Or, he wants her to pull him into the sadness, let it engulf them, float over them, let them be together.

He'd do anything of it meant that he'd be together with Carla.

(It sounds kind of overdramatic, pathetic, hypocritical, any other negative adjective of choice. Before today, he wasn't even capable of writing a text message. But that only makes his need more desperate – now that Samuel knows what he'd almost lost, and now seems to be getting it back, he kind of wants to strap himself to her door.)

“Marina and I used to make such a mess in the kitchen.”

 _Oh_. He freezes for an instant, then continues his walk to her and brushes their hands gently. Carla doesn't react, so he softly grips her fingers and tries to prompt her to turn around.

“We always tried to bake. Cupcakes, tartlets, cookies, whatever. They came out inedible seventy-percent of the time,” she gets out, voice weak, eyes looking down. “But one time, we made this actually good chocolate cake. Like seriously, amazing. Creme and glaze and everything.”

“And?” Samuel realizes he's been holding his breath.

“My mum was on a diet and my dad said he had to go to an urgent meeting,” Carla answers plainly, shoulders stiff. “We brought it over to Marina's house, ate the entire cake by ourselves. Well, with Guzmán.” She pauses. “We all threw up so badly that night.”

Samuel has no idea what to answer to the weirdly heartbreaking childhood story.

“It sucks when your parents don't care about you enough to take a bite of your stupid cake,” Carla doesn't need his responses, anyway. She just keeps talking – it doesn't happen often, so he lets her. “I guess I just couldn't grow up to be different than cold, calculating, shielded from everyone. I don't know, any time I tried to do something for myself, it just backfired. Like, being with Christian. Boom, Polo killed Marina, Christian ended up paralyzed. Being with you, Polo went borderline insane. He almost killed Ander, I just found out. Ander told me casually, inbetween conversation on the phone. _Hey, you know, Polo tried to whack me in the head with a stone_.” Her words become fast, frantic. “I tried doing things for other people then – I turned him in for you, I took it back for my dad. I dated Yeray for my mother.”

She chuckles bitterly. “Then I found out that I wasn't even good at doing things for people, because that process almost killed me. And that half of it were lies, that people don't even need me, anyways.” Her words become whimpers. “And that no matter what I did, people around me kept getting hurt.”

“Carla,” Samuel shakes his head disbelievingly, wanting to tell her something to make it all feel better, but words get stuck in his throat. She finally turns around, eyes filled with tears.

“I shouldn't have let you do things for me again,” she says, staring in his eyes deeply. Samuel's stomach feels even more like on water than that morning on the plane. “You don't deserve to crash and burn with me. _Because_ of me.” She presses her lips into a thin line desperately, closed eyelids painfully cramping, trying to stop the tears beneath. “It would kill me. This time, for real.”

Samuel isn't sure whether it was the chocolate cake, the eggs or just his visit overall that pulled her trigger, but it's physically painful to watch Carla trying so hard not to break.

It makes his fight-or-flight insticts kick in though, and since they're currently a hundred meters above the ground and he assumes that _flight_ wasn't meant figuratively, he doesn't have a different option.

“Carla,” he says firmly, surprising himself _and_ her. Tenderly cupping her cheek, smooth and terribly dry, he repeats: “Carla, look at me.”

She does. Her eyes are welled with tears, making them even more beautiful, but he doesn't care how vibrant they are. All he cares about is what's underneath.

Beauty is useless if it's conditioned by misery.

“What Polo did wasn't your fault. What happened to Christian wasn't your fault. What happened to Polo-” he swallows thickly, “Was definitely not your fault. You made mistakes, maybe more fatal than others, but that doesn't make you a bad person. The world we were in-” he sighs, “It was fucked up. It made us all do horrible things at certain points. But it was because we felt like we didn't have any other choice.” He tries to put as much meaning into his next sentence, make his eyes emit it and reach hers and cut through and plant it inside of her brain. “You never wanted to hurt anybody.”

“What does it matter if it happened anyway,” Carla murmurs, breaking eye-contact.

“Of course it matters,” he says, soft but decisive, reaching for her hand and squeezing it tightly. Carla doesn't protest, but her hand is as limp as a dead fish.

_Don't ask._

“What you said about people not needing you was shit,” Samuel says, voice infinitely more acute now. “ _I_ need you.” Carla stiffens, which is a minor improvement from _numb_. “And you need me.”

She swallows thickly. “Yeah. That's precisely the problem.”

“You said that today was the best day you've had here,” Samuel rises his voice, anguish growing. “It was the best day I've had in like a year, too. Maybe even longer.” He pauses. “Maybe the best day of my life. I've never felt the way I felt today, when I saw you after months.” He licks his lip nervously, having to look into the distance, behind Carla. “You were so beautiful. But that's not why.”

“Samuel-”

“We need each other, get it?” he begs urgently. “We were both fucked up. We had to grow up too soon, when everything sucked and went to shit, we still had each other. That prevented us from going insane.” He exhales, breath accumulating in his throat as he rushes to say the most he can, although it feels like he'll never be able to tell Carla enough. “The second half of senior year, you were always high, I was so angry all the time. It was because we didn't have that lifeline.” He looks into her eyes, detects something undefinable that lits up a spark of hope in his core. “I don't know why it works like that, but we keep each other sane.”

Carla lets out a stifled inaudible grumble.

“I can't lose you again. It might hurt if we crash and burn, but it's gonna hurt a million times more if you push me away right now. _Please._ ”

Carla jerks her hand away, turns abruptly and takes a step towards the window again. Samuel doesn't really register the way her shoulders shake, because everything is a blur. _Shit, shit, shit._

“We don't even live in the same city. How is this supposed to work?” Carla asks, voice high. “Samuel, it's- I mean, I know that it's hard because I know how _I_ feel _with_ and _without_ you, but it's impossible!”

“Please,” Samuel manages lowly, head spinning.

He vaguely registers Carla pressing her temples harshly by the plexiglass, taking steps back and forth. Maybe he's having placebo seasickness, but the booth shakes. He _does_ feel like drowning. Inevitable, hysterical and aphasic. Slowly numbing, blue and green, limb by limb, cell by cell. Motionless.

Then, as he feels the last piece of his sensibility slip away and being replaced by _nothing_ , he feels _her_ lips on his. Hungry, chapped, _alive_.

“Fuck it,” Carla breathes out. “I can't do this anymore.”

That's a very ambiguous sentence that doesn't calm him down much, especially as he's already had experience with Carla's goodbyes.

“I know that it's probably stupid, but I can't,” Carla murmurs frantically, staring at his lips. “I know there's a million reasons, but I just can't keep listening to them anymore.”

Samuel creshes their lips with full force, her words breaking a river. He's out of the current, his head is out the water, he can breathe again. Feel again. He can feel _too much_ , probably, every touch a painful burn.

“You're gonna kill me,” he says after minutes of desperate panting and bites and fingerprints and insufficient friction and _life_. “Seriously, Carla, you can't do this to me.”

“I know,” she replies seriously. “I'm sorry, I won't anymore.”

“What was it?” he asks silently. “I mean, what made you change your mind?”

“My mind's been on kind of a wild ride since you came,” Carla points out. “But the final swing? I don't know. Probably that I realized-”

The booth stops with a dull thump, the doors open with a whirr after two seconds, and if that wasn't clear enough, a ginger, curly-haired fat guy sticks his scarlet cheeks into the booth. “Ride over, youngsters!”

“Thank you,” Carla recovers first, taking in Samuel's hand and dragging him out. “It was wonderful.”

The guy doesn't react, just turns around. Probably good for him, because Samuel's having some very violent thoughts concerning that ugly Santa and his disruption of their moment.

What did Carla want to say?

“You never told me you were such a good crisis manager,” Carla brings up, entwining her fingers with his casually as they step into the adjoining gardens. She's all jokes and light touches again – it makes Samuel wonder how many times she's secretly broken down and then five seconds later stepped into whatever party, classroom or family dinner she was at with a fixed mascara and an easy smile.

“I don't know,” he goes along with it. If he knows anything about Carla, it's that not adapting to an atmosphere set by her doesn't meet with success. “The premium education, probably.”

“Las Encinas?”

“No, San Esteban. When roofs fall on your heads, you're prone to get philosophical epiphanies,” he throws in casually, then stops himself as he realizes.

“God,” Carla's the first one to speak. “We'll never be able to escape it, will we?”

“Probably,” he sighs. The sun is almost completely set and the lamps in the park are already on. It's started to drizzle lightly, the droplet making their way between Carla and Samuel's entwined fingers.

He stops under a lamp, Carla's face behind a hazy curtain of rain. The falling droplets reflect yellow light from the streetlamp onto her face, like in one of these lightplay toys where you crank the handle and it makes pictures on the walls, light and shadow creating flowers and leaves.

“But I'll be here for you when it feels too much.”

Carla stares at him, eyes big and dark. “Samuel,” she puts so much meaning into his name that it sets him on fire. He will never find out how she does that, and he doesn't even want to. “Let's go.”

“What?”

“I think we have different methods of dealing with trauma than most people,” she replies plainly, dragging him towards the gate. He's kinda shell-shocked by the implication, his legs not cooperating, so she turns back to him and pecks his cheek lightly. “Not that I don't appreciate your crisis management skills, but some things can also be solved without words.”

¤

Samuel has no other option than dumbfoundedly follow her. They don't actually rush to get _home_ , though – they make a stop at McDonald's after Samuel's stomach rumbles aggressively and Carla seems to agree.

“It's sad that this is one of the better options,” she leisurely sucks a french fry into her mouth. She even looks pretty under McDonald's artificial light and in the everpresent smell of frying oil, god. “Seriously. You don't know how _awful_ British food is.”

She makes a disgusted face and puts another fry into her mouth. She eats them in the funniest way – she puts the fry into her mouth by the end and lets it flap down, then hollows her cheeks and sucks it in when she wants another bite without using her hands. Like she's eating spaghetti. Or like she has one overgrown, assymetrical vampire tooth.

“Why did you choose here, then?” Samuel investiagates, eating a fry in a more humanly way. “Why didn't you go to America?”

“I always wanted to,” Carla continues in her childish food game, which really just makes him want to chuckle. Her stern voice in which she analyzes her life choices really doesn't match. “But then, I don't know. I guess this just fit my personality better. America is too casual.”

Saying as she sucks a soggy piece of 50% potato and 50% oil between her lips. Now, Samuel can't stifle laughter. “What?” Carla asks.

“Nothing,” Samuel's fit of laughter only intensifies as he notices the fry starting to tear apart. “Just-” He leans over the table and bites the end off. “There you go.”

“Hey,” Carla protests indignantly, so he pecks her lips, feeling crystals of salt.

She giggles into the kiss. “Yeah, I know, fine dining.”

“It's the fine company that matters,” Samuel shakes her doubts off. “You know, I l-”

 _Fuck!_ Carla's staring at him from two centimeters.

“- _like_ you the most when you're like this,” he improvizes awkwardly. “Doing silly stuff and not scared of what it looks like and being all cute.”

Carla entwines their fingers in the small space between their trays on the table, looks him in the eyes deeply and gives him the cheekiest, rosiest, most genuine smile. His heart might burst – there's so much _emotion_ under it. He can't decode all of it fully, but it's all for _him_.

“Come on, let's go,” Carla interrupts his sappy daydream, still gleaming widely. “You definitely deserve that souvenir. At least a double-decker keychain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also this was NOT supposed to be this dramatic but then i was writing and it just kinda took a turn lol. also i apparently can't stay away from mcdonald's in my stories??? that's slightly concerning and should be looked into further. anyways, thanks for your support and ily all!


	4. can't go on (without you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so this finally has smut (my tragic smut writing skills at your service) so i raised the rating, AND i actually kept my promise of getting this done quicker (or at least a little) than the last chapter. look at that. (the song from the title is shockingly called can't go on without you and there's a carmuel yt edit to it, search for it if ur still desperate bc of them like me.)

Carla's whole body tingles in anticipation as she unlocks the door of her first-floor apartment. Or, more so, struggles to – she's two and a half seconds away from throwing the keys on the ground and breaking through.

“You need help?”

“Got it,” the mechanism finally clicks and she steps into the dark apartment, automatically hanging her coat on the rack by the door.

“Uh, where's the switch-” Samuel fumbles behind her, creating a concerning dull sound. “Sh-”

Carla turns around, thanking her excellent pupilary reflexes for adjusting quickly to the dimness, grabs Samuel's face and slants her lips onto his. He complies wonderfully after the initial surprise, his hand gripping her butt. Carla bites his lip lightly and hums in pleasure as he opens his mouth for her. “Hi,” she whispers light-heartedly before devoting herself to getting rid of any tiny vacuum of space that could've existed between them.

Samuel seems to enjoy the idea of them meshing into one, judging by the way he encourages her to press onto him, squeezing her ass desperately. They both have the same negative opinion of her jeans – Carla writhes desperately against his thigh, hand traveling to his back and clutches the fabric of his hoodie before realizing that is not nearly sufficient and moving under it.

Samuel has a better solution to their problem, discarding of the hoodie and t-shirt in one swift motion. Carla's eyes flutter open and she admires his toned, somehow still tan chest, protuding collarbones and the bicep that flexes as he has her put her hands up to get rid of her sweater and blouse in a similar fashion.

She has to stifle a smile by biting her lip when lust glimpses over his face, jaw suddenly cut sharper and eyes darker. “Carla,” he breathes out.

She makes a quick show of unfastening his belt and is about to go for his fly, when Samuel grabs her wrist roughly and holds it in place as he goes for her lips again, other hand reaching for her shoulder to steady her. “Patience,” he purrs into her ear, breaking the kiss, grazing his teeth over her exposed neck.

Fuck _that_. Carla gasps when he kisses the side of her neck, but that doesn't stop her from arching her back and bumping into Samuel's lower body impatiently. “Come on.”

He has the nerve to grin, the show of teeth even more obvious in the darkness, but luckily, he doesn't start to speak and seems to have gotten the memo, trying to unzip Carla's jeans.

“Oh my god, you suck,” she groans after six seconds of hopeless tries and starts to free herself of her clothing, realizing that she has to kick off her boots before she can strip of her pants. When she manages that, she triumphantly turns to Samuel again, who looks absolutely delirious, his eyes frantically skipping over her body like he's trying to memorize every single curve, angle, bend.

“I know,” Carla whispers gently, not concerned at all with how full of herself she might sound. It's not what she means, anyway, and Samuel will get that she's pointing to the fact that she feels the exact same way when she looks at him, although she'd prefer if he was wearing a bit less clothing and looking a bit less frozen.

Fortunately, her line (or the sight he has, she doesn't really care if she's honest), seems to do it for Samuel. He snaps out, takes three long strides towards her and grabs her under the butt. He stumbles a little when he picks her up, probably expecting more resistence – she jumped up too dynamically to help him. She's not in the mood to make fun of him for it, though, so she just kisses him as he carries her from through the halway to her living room slash kitchen.

She's about to tell him that the bedroom's further through the door, because she knows that her weirdly shaped designer leather couch isn't the most comfortable piece of furniture. To her surprise, he doesn't go for the couch; he sits her on the kitchen island instead. She smirks at him, biting her lip; the marble against her skin is doing nothing to cool her down. “Now who's impatient.”

Samuel groans something, stands between her legs and attacks her mouth with a hungry kiss while his fingers battle with her bra. Fortunately, his skills don't betray him this time, and he's roughly twisting a nipple in no time while his kisses trail down from her mouth, one on her neck, one on her collarbone, one on her other nipple, next under her breast.

Carla impatiently grips onto his hair and pushes Samuel's head down. He chuckles into her stomach; the light guff of air makes her core vibrate. “Trying the head push on me, huh? Isn't that degrading?”

Carla's about to hit him with a snidely remark about _just balancing things out_ , but it dies in her throat when he finally pushes down her panties and experimentally circles with his tongue around her clit. She falls down on the cold white marble of her kitchen counter, almost hitting her head in the process, when Samuel, encoraged by her bucking her lips against his head, spreads her open with his fingers and devours her much more thoroughly.

“Yes,” Carla shudders desperately, trying to push herself closer to him, but he stops her, pressing his palms on her thighs firmly. All that does is turn her on even more, and she's left with her fists desperately trying to clutch onto something, the cold and smooth surface of the counter not giving her many options. She ends up thawing her nails into her own palms for a second, then reaches for Samuel's hair and tugs harshly, which just makes his tongue speed up in its expert flickering between her folds.

“You're so beautiful, Carla,” he breathes out, and she'd kinda laugh at how he's saying that with his head in her pussy, except that now he lets go of one of her thighs and occupies the free hand by circling around her clit. All her words get stilted in her throat as Samuel adds more pressure onto her clit, tongue buried inside her. She's not capable of laughing; her entire body cramps in ecstasy, but Samuel only backs out after prolonging her torture by pressing down on her stomach and not letting her jerk away.

She's not exactly capable of pushing herself up, so she speaks into the annoying exposed beam ceiling that is apparently a hot trend in architecture, but also just plain ugly. “Fuck. I forgot how good you were at this.”

“I had a good teacher,” she guesses Samuel shrugs, trying to downplay how this makes his ego sing. Carla grins into the dark space above her head, whose vacuum is suddenly disrupted by Samuel hovering over her. He just stares at her for a second, a look so intense it makes her shiver before he softly presses their lips together.

“You're so nice, it's kinda annoying,” Carla whispers, gleaming tiredly. When her eyes flutter open, Samuel's not above her anymore, but something's grazing her entrance.

She gasps when he pushes inside of her, sudden oversensitivity replacing the previous haze. She uses all of her remaining power to drape herself up to her elbows.

“Fuck,” she mururs when she sees Samuel, forehead curls slightly sweaty, jaw squared in concentration, hands tightly gripping on her waist, doing something that couldn't be described as anything else than fucking her soul out of her.

“I don't have to be nice,” he growls, voice raspy, but the way he lifts her up to join their lips in a kiss suggests otherwise.

Carla's teeth graze his lip when he picks up the pace again, crossing her ankles behind his back. Her fingernails draw rough, desperate trails into Samuel's back.

“I missed you so much,” she confesses feverishly, clutching as tight onto him as she can.

Samuel pants in response, his touch cauterizing all over her skin.

¤

“I'm seriously concerned about your reasons for wanting me around,” Samuel brings up when they're freshly showered and he has his arm draped over her torso. Carla's calm breathing into his chest intensifies momentarily, but his light-hearted tone dismantles her worries. “You know, first the head push, then how you said you missed me while fucking. Am I your gigolo or what?”

“You know, freshly imported from the Mediterranean,” she giggles. “The guys here are awfully _pasty_.”

“Well, then I'm glad I could help,” he draws out lazily, playing with damp strands of her hair. She tingles and draws herself closer to him. “Carla-”

 _Now would be a good time_ , she thinks. She also still thinks that it's stupid and short-sighted and will probably end up doing more harm than good, but that doesn't make her want it less. More, maybe.

“How is this gonna go? Are we going to try to make this work, or just-” he gestures into the air, taking his hand off her back. Carla shivers, though not because of the loss of conduction.

“I don't know,” she replies pensievely, hoping it doesn't sound sad. “But you know, the flight only takes two hours. That's not so much.”

“I don't have the time or money for that, not even once every month,” Samuel protests.

Carla sighs. “Well, it's good that _I_ do.”

Now it's his turn to sigh. Carla hates how he must make everything so complicated because of his stupid pride, how he'll never let her help him out, because _he can take care of himself;_ she also understands it, better than anyone. Maybe when _she's_ dismissing something without even considering it first, she should at least _consider_ how limiting her stubborness can be. “Samuel,” she starts, gentle and just a little bit autoritative. “It's not you _owing_ me anything, it's not you using me. It's just how it is.”

“It can still make me feel like shit though,” he breathes into her hair. “I promise, once I get out of that hellholle, I'll get a degree, become a hotshot lawyer and I'll pay for all of _our_ trips and dinners and I'll be the one to buy you a-”

The butterflies in Carla's stomach flutter like crazy, but Samuel next to her tenses up and clears his throat. She doesn't want him to, so she lightens the atmosphere with a joke: “That's a little bit sexist, you just making me into a dependent trophy-wife.”

Samuel's tension doesn't subside, and Carla mentally sighs. It's obvious what all his insecurity and fear stem from, and she hates it, hates _herself_ for it. “Samuel-”

“You know what I just realized?” he interrupts her, somewhat quick, like he can't lay his thoughts out fast enough, but he also sounds much less intense now, so her body relaxes even if her mind isn't quite there yet. “You never call me _Samu_.”

She ponders the thought for a brief moment. “No, I don't.”

“Why?” he sounds mildly curious, like he can't possibly fathom a reason.

“I don't know,” Carla answers truthfully. “It never occurred to me.”

“It's just weird,” Samuel continues. “When I get close to someone, they automatically use it. It's like a warming-up thing.”

Carla snorts. “Maybe I haven't _warmed up_ to you in the right ways.” She thinks about their high-school _relationship_ , fucked up and somehow also the only thing that feels _right_ from her student years. But no, it was definitely not a cute nickname thing. It was more a _fuck me in the bathroom and accidentally fall in love with me_ kind of thing.

 _Yeah_. She breathes out, eyes his facial expression.

He's considering it. “Probably.” Carla feels _his_ eyes scanning her face, trying to decipher her thoughts. “And now?”

“What now?”

“What we're doing right now. I meant it when I asked you,” he's serious, too serious, forehead wrinkled. Carla wants to kiss the wrinkles away (and she also wants to run away to Africa and never come back, get lost on a coconut boat or something).

“Did you miss me for me or because you missed fucking me?”

“You're more of a girl than any of the girls I know,” Carla stalls, feeling a wave of cold sweat. She'd thought this would get easier, but reality is coming down on her again, crushing, heavy, _true_. They have two completely different lives now, in completely different cities, and she can dream what she wants about flying to see him every week, but life rarely runs according to plan. And-

“Carla, just answer me,” Samuel says, quiet and calm but firm. “You know what I want.”

She _does_. Her internal organs feel like they're being rotated on a centrifuge; her throat is closing up. Her heart is jumping around in a golden cage, _thump, thump, thump_ , delusional with need and ready to burst.

_Not now._

“It is real,” she says, meaning each of her words. Gentle fingertip touches aren't met with success – he probably thinks she just wants to distract him – so she grabs his hand with both of hers and holds it. “I mean it. I meant it a year ago and I mean it now. I want to be with you, just us, no pretending. _You and me_.”

He breathes out, heavy and content and with unspoken disappointment lingering underneath. “Okay. Then, I guess we'll have to figure it out.”

“We will,” Carla promises, hopes she sounds as authentic as she means it, and leans to kiss him. He hesitates for a second, but she pulls him in with herself quickly.

They were never ones to be able to abstain.

¤

“When are you even leaving?”

At three in the morning and after round three, Carla realizes it's about time to stop putting off the inevitable. If they want to make it work, they should start with drafting up a plan accordingly soon.

Samuel doesn't respond for longer than she'd like. She starts to turn her head around to inspect whether he's fallen asleep, but doesn't have to finish.

“Shit!” Samuel springs up panickingly, gaze ticking around the room. “Shit, yeah, that's a very good question.”

“He didn't give you a return ticket?” Carla asks incredulously, completely flabbergasted by the stupidity of guys and also feeling just a little bit like she's going to burst out in laughter, watching a naked Samuel pace across the room in furious fast little steps and with his hand palming his face. “It's on the nightstand.”

“Oh. Thanks,” he grabs the phone, has it by the ear in two seconds.

“You know, it's three in the morni-”

“What the fuck? It's four in the morning!”

“Shit,” Samuel hisses, half at Guzmán and half at the loudspeaker on his phone blaring on full volume across the room. He starts to frantically push the buttons, but Carla shakes her head assuringly, mouths “leave it on”.

She's not gonna miss an Oscar-worthy comedy.

“Did you think to get me a return ticket?”

“What?” Guzmán mumbles, obviously having managed to drift into a semi-conscious state in the five seconds of silence.

“A return ticket from London, you idiot!” Samuel's voice rises up in panic, which is _very_ funny. Carla has to bite her lip to stifle a giggle – a completely red Samuel on the verge of a breakdown, pulling out his hair and stumbling like a five-year-old girl in heels, is surely the best show she could've asked for.

“What? I don't-”

“You sent me to London and didn't think about how I'd get back? We have school tomorrow, you idiot!”

Okay, now this is getting a bit too overdramatic. Carla's sure he could miss a chunk of European history, considering he'd taken the exact same course last year. Guzmán finally realizes what he forgot and, now fully woken up, is apologizing while obviously trying not to laugh at Samuel's squirrel-on-helium-turned voice. She reaches for her own phone and ignores Samuel's “How do you even _buy_ a ticket?” in the background.

“He's unbelievable. He forgot,” Samuel falls down on her bed a few minutes later. “And now, he's making up stories about a capybara having eaten me that he'll tell to the teachers. I'm seriously-”

“It's all good. I got it.” She shows him the QR code on her phone. “I have a premium membership. You leave at two tomorrow.”

Samuel's facial expression is priceless. He's frozen in place, mouth slightly agape.

“Thanks?” Carla prompts him, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh, yeah, obviously, thank you so much Carla, you saved my life, I have to work tomorrow and I really-”

Carla laughs blissfully – he is _so_ stupid – and shakes her head. “It's just a plane ticket, Samuel. I didn't invent the cure for cancer for you.”

_Or a cure for stupidity, which he could use._

“I'm really so grateful,” he ignores her completely, “I-”

She gives him a halfway genuinely annoyed look. He realizes, shuts up, stares at her for a moment longer than necessary, and kisses her.

That's the kind of praise she can use. “I can teach you how to use websites, you know?” she teases, hand in his silky hair, tongue darting over her lip. “You see, these phones have an amazing thing, it's called data, and you can get on this thing called the internet-”

“Shut up,” Samuel groans, props himself over her and _makes her._

Carla's hear feels as if about to implode.

¤

She wakes up first, not to the sound of an alarm, but to the feeling of heat. She'd fallen asleep in his stride, and somehow, he managed to pull her even closer.

He's kind of sweaty and kind of even more beautiful, skin sparkly and thick lines of eyelashes framing his content sleep, from what she can see when she turns her head back.

Carla wiggles out a little from his arms to get a better look at his face. He lets go of her reluctantly, the grip around her waist only loosening slightly.

She manages to turn to her other side, staring straight at his face. He really is every bit as cute as she'd remembered. The flush is still there, she's sure he smells like sweat and late-night sex, but that doesn't devalue the beauty of his dark curls falling down his forehead or his sharply cut jaw softened with happiness. Not even a little.

“Hi,” Carla whispers, pressing a soft, featherlight kiss on his cheek. “Good morning.”

He hums something content, plump lips letting out a vibration, but doesn't turn around.

 _I love you,_ Carla thinks. _I love you, I love you, I love you._ She says it experimentally with her mouth closed.

_I love you._

Her body cramps with the desire to let it out.

“I love you,” she whispers.

The room is bright, white and illuminated by cold morning sunbeams, and completely still.

It's a different kind of stillness than what it radiated just a day ago – sterilly impersonal minimalistic white furniture, overbearing silence because it was only her heartbeat present in the apartment, _unmoving_.

 _This_ is a different kind of stillness altogether. It radiates peace. It's warm and bright, but not in the way that burns your eyes out. It's the way that makes you close your eyes contently and turn your face to the sun. Mellow heat. Quiet breaths of somebody else that you don't hear, but feel-

Carla sighs internally, trying not to think about how the usual kind is only a few hours from suffocatingly engulfing her apartment again, focuses on Samuel's face and presses a slightly more palpable kiss on his temple. He murmurs something inaudible but turns his head towards her, lips forming into a crescent moon.

She giggles and peppers his smooth skin with kisses – the tip of his nose, the crease above his eyebrow, just next to his lips. When she reaches his mouth, he finally pouts back.

“Hi,” she whispers, his eyes still closed but him already awake. “Samu.”

His grin widens, his eyelids flutter and the next thing she knows, he's grinning at her, sparkles and glitter and rosy cheeks. “Took you long enough.”

“Took you long enough to wake up,” she teases back, tender and syrupy. She kisses his cheek softly once again. “We have to get up.”

“But now you're just like the others,” he whispers, ignoring her statements and stifling them in his embrace. She goes all too willingly. “The innocent, cute Samu with his pet name. I kinda liked that you took me seriously. That you didn't see me as someone else's wide-eyed little brother.” His words gain a mischevious tint. “That you _wanted_ _me_.”

She rolls her eyes a little. “Then, I don't know what you want from me.”

“I don't want anything from you. I just want _you_.”

“Hmm,” Carla murmurs contently as he draws a path of tingles down her back. “Then, I think I can do both.”

 _I love you_ , she thinks when he eats her out first thing in the morning.

She's on fire. Her entire body might erupt like a volcano from all the lava she's holding in.

Beautiful, but fatal. That's what it is.

That's what her love for Samuel is, and she _is_ a volcano. It's been sleeping for the past months, but now it's waking back up to life.

She doesn't know how much longer she can take it, how much she can keep it just that, a mountain to take walks on under green trees and breezy air, which can turn, within a matter of seconds and an uncontrollable explosion, to something so much more majestic and much more deadly.

¤

Because their priorities are aligned straight, they barely make brunch before Samuel has to leave for the airport. Carla begrudgingly accepts that maybe she's a little bit too high-maintenance and British food doesn't have to be all bad, if things like scones with jam exist.

But then it's time to go, and their friendly bickering about her being so extra with her premium pomegranate/orange jam she uses instead of the chemical-injected strawberry preserves turn into a much heavier, lingering silence that shuts out all the background noise of the metro.

“Text me when you land,” Carla manages first, because Samuel looks like he wouldn't be able to open his mouth if some weirdly-motivated murderer put a gun to his head and said _Speak, or die_.

“Yeah,” he exhales heavily, face gloomy and tragic. It's completely unproductive in their current situation, just as much as the continuation of his sentence. “I'm gonna miss you so much.”

“Me too,” Carla doesn't let it sink deeper, or she'll think too much and feel like crying, and in this constellation, that just won't work. She has to stay in control. “So, I might have time to fly to Madrid the weekend after next. I can't next week, there's this Uni networking event that I have to be at. But I'll make it so that I can come in two weeks, no matter what.”

“So, are we really doing this?” Samuel speaks, blunt and way too clear. “A long-distance relationship? Not sleeping with anyone else?”

 _This is just_ so _us_ , Carla thinks. They can't have serious conversations like this in private, like normal people would. Sit down to it and talk. No, they have to start with it on a public train, thirty minutes before he leaves.

She tries not to sound annoyed above the acceptable levels when she replies: “What, are you gonna miss out too much?”

“That's not what I meant,” Samuel mumbles. “I'm not gonna miss out on anything, really. _You_ , on the other hand-”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Yeah, Samuel, we're doing it. And if you're doubting my self-control, let me assure you, I can turn down the pompous pricks whose fathers were _awarded knightery by the queen in 2004_.”

“I'm not underestimating the strength of your resolve. I'm just saying, if you don't want to miss out on the college experience-”

“Samuel?” She waits before he's staring at her expectantly. “Shut up.”

He doesn't break the stern face for another two seconds, then lowers his gaze and huffs. “Well, who am I to tell you that you should fuck knights if you don't want to.”

“Exactly,” Carla nods authoritatively. “Besides,” she lowers her head to speak into his ear, “Do you kow how much better it will be after we have to wait? I mean, maybe just seeing you will be my turn-on after such a dry spell.”

“Now _you_ shut up,” the tips of Samuel's ears grow red. “There's people around.”

Carla leans back into her seat contently, watching his still rudimented ears with a smirk.

“Besides, that's already enough to turn you on as it is.” It's his turn to lean in her direction.

She giggles into his hair, his clumsy public dirty-talk having more of an effect on her that she'd admit. “But don't tell that to anyone, they'd send me to get a psychological evaluation for having such inadequate responses.”

“I think I'm very adequate for you, thank you very much,” Samuel murmurs lowly.

She can only agree.

¤

She doesn't want to cry. She really doesn't. If things go as planned, she'll see him in two weeks, the miracles of modern technology will allow her to see his face before that, and again, considering the months of silence, two weeks feels laughably insignificant, especially since she has one thing now, and that is clarity.

The messy tangle of her thoughts doubting each of her self-assurances is exactly why she needs to make this quick, leave now. Rip off the bandaid, before she goes insane. Before the little voice in her head maliciously singing _with the way two you are, you won't see him again ever_ , will make her do something insane, like drop out and move to Madrid.

Now that she's thinking about it-

Samuel isn't making this any easier, his sad smile and puppy dog eyes, which just feeds onto her insane desires. She has to stop herself spiraling, purse her lips and stop being fucking stupid.

“I'll see you in two weeks,” she says in the hall of the terminal, trying to ignore the loud talks and fussing and indignant phone calls and most importantly, her tear glands begging her to let the water fall. She knows better. “And you call me once you land, okay?”

“Okay,” Samuel nods, smile so unconvincing that it seems he isn't even trying a little.

She kisses him, fairly reserved because firstly, they're in public and secondly, because she really will cry if she doesn't halt it. “Now, you already know how to get through customs, right Mr Worldwide?” she tries to joke, but all it does is sound pathetic.

“Yeah,” he sighs, not buying an ounce of it. “I- Yeah. Bye, Carla.”

Then he turns around and goes.

Carla stares at his retreating back, but he doesn't turn around. He doesn't even seem like he's thinking about, and it'll also only take a few more steps before he'll get lost in an ocean of strangers.

She shakes out her head, claws her manicured nails into her palm to make something else hurt, and turns around.

She takes exactly three and a half steps before a thought, as freeing as it is crippling, shears through her entire body so much that it feels like she is being cut in half.

_What the fuck are you doing?_

Carla turns around on her heel, mumbled excuses leaving her throat as she elbows her way through Sirs and Misses. Adrenaline is pulsing in her head.

This isn't supposed to be like that. He _won't_ leave like that.

“Sorry,” she says, breathless and not caring in the slightest that her heel on that man's shoe must've really hurt. “I'm really sorry, excuse me-”

Her gaze runs over the five different lines waiting for their security checks. _Samuel, Samuel, Samuel_. Where are you?

This is the most emotionally strenuous game of _find Waldo_ in her life. Unfortunately, Samuel isn't wearing a red-striped shirt; Samuel is wearing a grey hoodie and black jeans, the best uniform to be overlooked, and the off-brand sport bag won't help her much, either. If he had a cheetah-print suitcase like that arrogant-looking lady, things would be much better.

“Samuel!”

He turns around instantly, the wildcat-print lady scoffing as he bumps into her. He ignores her, so does Carla, who's making her way through the queue and ignoring angry Brits. “I'm not here to cut, I'm not even flying anywhere,” she barks back angrily as one elderly bald man attacks her with a politely irritated _young lady._

“Samuel,” she repeats, meeting him mid-way. He left his place in the line which has grown considerably bigger, but she doesn't really care.

“Yeah?” he asks, question marks instead of eyes. “Did you forget something?”

“I love you,” she blurts out before her heart shatters and stains all of her insides with highly pressurized blood, before her brain manages to talk her into being smart and before she has the time to control her volume and not speak way too loudly in a tightly packed space.

Samuel is staring at her with mouth slightly agape, and she stops breathing for the virtuously endless seconds in which his lips are parted, but words aren't coming out. When he does, finally, his voice is weirdly colourless. “What did you say?”

“I love you,” Carla tones it down, suddenly very aware of the twenty people encircling them. “I love you, Samuel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also parts of this got way fluffier and parts of this got way angstier than i wanted. apparently, i'm not capable of not writing a chapter that isn't a complete emotional rollarcoaster. also, the "you don't call me samu" part is very much something that's been on my mind since i read when i was older for the first time. so inspo credits to @shawsameen bc that fact hasn't left my head since june or something lmao and i knew i had to have him address it sometime. and this fic seemed like a good opportunity.  
> and my standard thanks for ur comments and kudos i love them sm they give me life! <3


	5. when we are apart (just remember that we lay under the same stars)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so first of all i am SO sorry for the wait. it's just... yeah. how it is. this isn't even good tbh guys i'm really sorry i swear the next chapter will be quicker AND better.  
> the lyric in the title of this chapter is from never be alone by shawn mendes bc... yeah we love cheesy. i had around 4 candidates for the title and then i went with something else entirely (pls tell me i'm not the only one whose favourite part about posting a fic is picking the title lol)  
> i really hope you'll like this and i'm so sorry for the wait again!! ily all <3

Carla's looking at him, cheeks red and eyes glittering and her entire _being_ glowing and he realizes that he's _not_ in a dream when she tilts her head and looks mildly annoyed by his long-standing silence.

“I love you too,” he exhales, because obviously, he does, and then she gleams and they kiss and the people around start clapping like they're the protagonists of some predictable rom-com.

Except nothing about this was predictable at all.

Nothing is predictable about the way Carla falls into a hug and wets his shoulder with tears, either. “I don't want you to leave.”

It's probably a little evil, how all that does is make his heart leap and sing and dance, but he can't stop it. She _loves_ him. _Carla_ loves him. She loves him enough to _cry_.

Okay, he'll stop. “Hey,” he runs his fingers through her hair, smooth and unstyled because they didn't exactly have enough time in the morning. “Two weeks, remember? And we can call every day.”

“Okay,” Carla sniffles into his hoodie like a little girl. “But I still wish you could stay with me.”

Samuel's starting to seriously consider the possibility of Carla having been replaced by a perfect clone while trying not to sound too pleased when he responds: “Me too, baby.”

“ _Baby?_ ”

Okay, it's Carla.

“Do you really want the last thing you say to me before I board a potentionally crashing flight to be a mockery?” he shakes his head.

Carla chuckles into his chest. “No. I want it to be this.”

Then she kisses him, not having to tilt her head because she's wearing heels. “I love you,” she whispers, eyes big and watery and smiling. “Don't miss your deadly flight. And text me when you land.”

“I love you,” Samuel echoes, unsure whether he means it for her to hear or it's just his brain and body catching up. “I love you.”

A guy next to him chuckles. “Good job. She loves you. You can go before me, I guess this took quite some of your time.”

“ _Gracias_ ,” Samuel responds, bewildered. When the guy strikes him a confused glance, he corrects himself hurriedly. “I mean, thanks.”

“You're welcome,” the stranger snorts amusedly. “Try not to walk into a wall.”

It's good advice - he might as well. He wouldn't even feel it.

¤

“Samu! Seeing you're here early, I assume you managed to escape from London!” Guzmán yells jovially the moment he steps through the classroom door.

“Yeah,” Samuel sighs dreamily when Guzmán plops down on the chair next to him. He got about three hours of sleep last night (today), it feels like pure caffeine is circulating through his blood vessels, he'll have to work for four hours after an already endless school day and Guzmán's volume is not helping his sleep-deprived brain.

Yet, he can't stop beaming.

Carla _loves_ him.

It hasn't left his brain for the time being, occupying every inch of his thinking space.

“Samu? Earth to Samu?”

“Uh-huh? Yeah? What?”

“Oh my god,” Guzmán palms his face ostentatiously, grinning. “So, I guess it either went really good and you're replaying the sex in your head, or it was so big of a disaster that you had to cope by getting insanely high.”

“Uh-huh,” Samuel nods impresently. “Uh- it was something else.”

“ _Something else_?” Guzmán rolls his eyes pretentiously. “What, did she use some special British techniques on you you didn't know about?”

“I love her,” Samuel blurts out, _feeling_ high. “And she told me she loved me. Do you get this? She _loves_ me!”

Guzmán stays quiet for an unusually long time, making Samuel snap out a bit. He focuses on his friend's face, pure consternation, and nudges him with his elbow.

“ _Wow_ ,” Guzmán finally gets out, now looking like the one who's positively out of it. “I mean, wow.”

“Tell me about it,” Samuel nods contently, feeling pretty smug about causing Guzmán to be so impressed that he was left speechless. “Really, thank you for forcing me to do this. I don't know how I could've been so stupid to almost let the best thing that's ever happened to me slip through my fingers.”

“Okay, hold on,” Guzmán interrupts him, eyes slightly narrowed. “The best thing that's happened to you?” Samuel stares at him nervously, not knowing what he wants. “What about _me_?”

They burst out laughing after two seconds of pure confusion being transmitted. “Of course you're the best thing that's ever happened to me,” Samuel coughs desperately. “You know, after all the beatings and joint criminal activities, how could you not be?”

“Okay, all the jokes aside, did she seriously tell you she loves you?” Guzmán recovers again, obviously skimming through his thoughts. “Like, _she_ told you?”

“Yeah. She said it _first_. At the airport,” Samuel tries to act nonchalant, but the cheery (smug) tone he can't control is giving him off. “I mean, she chased me to the customs, can you believe it? I mean, she was obviously scared, because you know,” Guzmán nods, “but then she got to me through all these people and she said it and then we kissed in the middle of all these travelers who started clapping.”

“Samu,” Guzmán lowers his head, fake-concerned, “Are you _absolutely_ sure that you didn't take any hallucinogens?”

“Yeah, I am, thanks for your concern,” Samuel scoffs, but he can't stay fake-angry for long – or at all. “Seriously, thank you so much for making me do this, Guzmán.”

“Yeah,” the blond laughs brightly, “I was right once again, huh?” He shakes his head in response to Samuel's eager nod. “Although I definitely didn't think it would turn out like this.”

“How did you think it'd turn out, then?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Guzmán shrugs. “Honestly, I mostly thought that you'd find out she has someone else already, so you could finally start to move on.”

“That hasn't stopped me before,” Samuel points out flatly. “Wow, thanks for sending me to London to break my heart. Thank god your prophetic skills are shit.”

“Or I don't know how I'd thought it'd go, but definitely not with her chasing you through an airport to confess her love,” Guzmán ignores his accusations. “Seriously, that's the last thing I'd expect _Carla_ to do.”

“What would you not expect Carla to do?”

Samuel instantly freezes; the deep voice behind his back unmistakably belongs to the last person he'd like to tell about his reunion with Carla. “I wanna know all the drama. Did the little marchioness get kicked out of the preppy school because of her affluence for Molly?”

“You need way more than get high to get kicked out of school you paid your way into,” Guzmán smiles breezily, sending Samuel weird mimicky stares to calm him down. “She's actually doing good, I heard.”

“Good for her,” Rebeka nods, cracking a tiny half-smile. “That shit's bad.”

Guzmán pats Samuel's shoulder when they're quite literally saved by the bell and Rebeka retrieves to her own spot. “Jeez, Samu. Loosen up.” He turns around conspirationally, then huffs lowly into Samuel's ear. “Think about your _lover_.”

“Yeah,” Samuel breathes out.

Look. His and Rebe's relationship is... complicated, to say the least. He's done some very shitty things to her. She's made some questionable decisions that have put him in danger, and the worse part, she's done some shitty things to Carla.

They've apologized multiple times, both sides feeling utterly shitty, and forgiven each other, or at least that is what they claim, but-

But it sucks.

It sucks because he misses his friend. It sucks that he misses the way things used to only be _complicated,_ not a whole big ass mess.

“You should make up,” Guzmán catches his thoughts red-handed.

“We _made_ up,” Samuel retorts stubbornly.

“If she finds a guy for herself, it'll get easier,” Guzmán ponders, ignoring him completely. “Or,” he smirks mischeviously, “A girl?”

Samuel scoffs, annoyed. “Shut up. She's fine. _We're_ fine.”

Guzmán utilizes his most overdramatic tone of voice, each word bursting with irony. “Samu, if everyone was as _fine_ as you are, the suicide rate would triple.”

¤

It takes two days for Guzmán's wish for confrontation to come true. Samuel is – well, not subtle, to say the least. His trying to _keep his newfound relationship with Carla a secret_ comes the same as if he drew it on the sky. Definitely to Rebeka who knows him much too well.

He can't say he's surprised when she bumps into him in the cafeteria – but then again, he's kind of on a pink cloud these days, so he mostly just dreamily nods when she tells him that they need to talk.

“Samu,” Rebeka starts, the two of them by their old picnic table when they still used to be outcasts. He's having a sandwich and an overpriced cafeteria coffee because he felt like death, and he's suddenly... wary. Rebeka's tone is entirely too serious for his in-love _and_ sleep-deprived brain to deal with.

“How are you?” he blurts out, his compromised brain functions having all turned on at once.

Rebeka looks at him like he's a complete idiot (okay, fair), bites into an apple, chews loudly and lazily answers after a few seconds. “Fine.”

“Uh,” Samuel's mouth opens on its own accord, but unfortunately, his thoughts haven't caught up, so that's the end of his lovely _saving his skin_ and kinda _rejuvenating his friendship_ effort.

“But definitely nowhere near your good,” Rebeka continues, Samuel having given up and accepting his fate. “A little birdie told me that you went to London to meet up with the little marquesita.”

 _Well._ Samuel blinks, bites into his sandwich dumbly, chokes on lettuce, feels the leaf come up through his nose, coughs for a solid thirty seconds and ends the whole debacle with hesitantly looking at Rebeka and an: “Uh-huh.”

She snorts. “Jesus christ. I'm not gonna strangle you for it, you can just tell me.”

That's something he very much doubts (not the strangling part, the _just tell me_ part. Not unless he wants to die from the most uncomfortable conversation on planet Earth.) “Uh.”

Rebeka kicks him in the shin, obviously set on _not_ dropping it. “So. How was it?”

“Um,” Samuel trails off desperately, wishing for the Earth to open and swallow him whole. He lowers his gaze to his tennis shoes (ouch, his shin _hurts_ ) and speaks to the ground. “I'm sorry.”

“What for?”

 _Not telling you about going to London to see Carla, being in love with her in a way I could never like you, sending your mum to jail and being a shitty (boy)friend,_ Samuel thinks, but only voices the first part, because the second half of his thoughts has already been said multiple times and the _being in love with Carla_ is just not a good topic to discuss with Rebeka _ever_.

“I get it,” she waves him off. “I just – I just wanna know if you're okay.”

Now it's his turn to look at her incredulously. Rebe's big eyes are pining on his face though, infinitely determined, so he just decides to be honest.

She's one of the strongest people he knows, after all, so if she thinks she can handle it...

“I've never been happier,” he says, and even though there's guilt, he can barely feel it under all the elation. “I mean, I know long-distance is gonna be difficult, but-”

He shuts himself up once he gets a look at Rebeka's facial expression. Shit, he was never one to know when to shut up. She looks distressed under that forced casualness, which is never a good look.

“I'm sor-” he starts for the millionth time, but she shuts him up.

“Samu,” she interrupts him, tone sincere. “I know you're sorry. Which doesn't _not_ make you a dick, but I know.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles sadly. “I know.”

“And I'm not here to hold that over your head. What's done is done, and holding grudges is just too exhausting for my liking,” she fidgets with the core of her apple. “I just wanna make sure that she's totally up for it. And you won't end up getting hurt.”

 _Shit._ “Oh,” escapes Samuel's throat dumbly. He's not even going to try to save any of his dignity at this point and pretend he knows what's going on here. “ _Oh._ ”

“So?” Rebeka raises an eyebrow at him. “Can you be sure? You know, I don't wanna be all judgmental, but Carla's – definitely special.”

He's not gonna lie, that tone is making him angry, but that's nothing compared to the gratitude (and shame). Rebeka, after all this time, is concerned about his _wellbeing_.

So he controls himself and looks at Rebe, her eyes laced with genuine care, and smiles. “Don't worry, she is. _We_ are. I have it under control.” She doesn't look entirely sure, but he's not about to throw in her face that Carla told him she loved him and then wet his shoulder with tears because he was leaving (still feels good), so he decides on something else. “Thank you.”

She eyes him confusedly. “Why?”

 _Do I have to say it,_ he thinks, but then does anyway. Rebe deserves it. “For caring about me after all the shit I did to you, and especially for being so understanding about Carla,” he murmurs the second half lower than he'd like. “I know it can't be easy, with us and her-”

“Jesus, stop being so tragic,” Rebe forces him to snap out of his self-hatred moment with an _I-won't-take-your-shit_ tone. “I get it. She's hot. Who _wouldn't_ like her.”

She's trying hard, but the sourness is still under there and Samuel detects it. “Everyone would like you, too,” he says, still not looking at her. He _can't._ “You're amazing. You're funny and we have a great time, it's just that Carla-”

“I get it. _Feelings_ ,” Rebe draws out, eyes rolling. “Can't force them.”

“Yeah,” Samuel exhales heavily, finally having the courage to hold eye-contact with her for more than three seconds. “Can't stop them either.”

She nods decisively. “Stupid feelings.” Quiets down for a moment – Samuel hears some stupid picteresque bird chirping in the nearby tree. “Though it helps if you give them time.”

Samuel chuckles sadly, meeting Rebeka's gaze over him – she'd settled on the table while he's on the bench. “Didn't work for me.” _I flew to London instead._

“For me it did,” Rebeka shrugs, tone flat. “Kinda helps when the asshole you like sends your mum to jail.”

They stare at each other for half a second before they burst out laughing.

“I just wish everything could be normal like before,” Samuel confesses inbetween his fits, cheeks red with a mixture of ridicule and regret.

“Yeah, like when you were investigating who killed your ex,” Rebeka snorts. “Nothing was ever _normal_ here, pal.”

Samuel gauges on a piece of ham when she hits his back. “But we could try to make it normal,” he manages when he's spat out a ball of stuck dough from the back of his throat (Rebeka didn't bat an eye) and is not in danger of immediate death. “You know.”

“That's a nice way of saying that you want me to beat up your ass again,” Rebe laughs, hits his shoulder lightly (by her standards) and shakes her head. “Let's do it.”

He smiles at her, wide and bright. “You have no clue how good I've gotten over the summer. You're in for a rude awakening.” What he doesn't say is that most of his boxing was done in order to distract himself from an overwhelming misery caused by a certain blonde (or her absence).

Rebe kisses her teeth, smacks his head lovingly and utters: “In your dreams.”

¤

It's not fun to work twenty-four hours a week in order to pay for your living expenses while going to school, but Samuel doesn't complain. (Okay, maybe he does. But definitely not to Guzmán, because he'd try to give him money, which puts school out of the question for his complaining zones.)

“Fucking shit,” he collapses onto Omar's couch. His shift started at six, which has the universal advantage that he's out by two, and the universal disadvantage that he's way too tired to do anything else with his day anyway. “That was the shittiest eight hours of my life. This guy returned food three times. First it was too raw, then it was too cooked, and then he said that the new steak was too _asymetrical_.”

“Wanna trade waiting tables for the bar?” Omar hops next to him, unlike Samuel well-rested from his sleeping until noon and sipping from a _Capri-Sun pouch_. “I had to clean barf three times in various corners of the bathroom yesterday.”

“That makes me feel better,” Samuel murmurs, face buried in the cushion, unsure whether he's being ironic or not. “What's up with the juice?”

“They're about to expire, so my dad took them off the shelves and gave some to me,” Omar explains cheekily, reaching under his couch and revealing a carton of _Red Fruit Multivitamins_. “Want one?”

“No, thanks,” Samuel groans, but he was already hit by a foil package in the scalp. “I'm not six.”

“Dude,” he doesn't see Omar's face, but he knows exactly what expression he has on. “That shit's delicious.”

“Don't you have a beer or something,” Samuel begrudgingly sips, pouting his lips aroung the tiny straw, and makes sure not to let even a tad of enjoyment show on his face. “I don't think juice will help me deal with the miserable reality that is my life.”

Omar ostentatiously taps on his cheek and lets a smile form across his face. “What a tragedy your life is. But I know what's gonna make it better,” he practically sing-songs. “Or, _who_. When's she coming?”

“Next Friday,” Samuel tries to maintain his disgusted tone (about the absence of beer _and_ his life), but the pink fluffy cloud of love creeps up and betrays him. “But she's not here yet, so make my life better now and get me a beer.”

“Jesus, you're already catching the aristocratic customs,” Omar mocks. “No, your royal highness, I unfortunately can't get you a beer. As you know, I live with my parents and things have started to go well, so I won't exactly provoke them by casually drinking at home.”

“Right. I'm sorry,” Samuel scales it down. Maybe that jerk with his non-medium medium-rare isn't a good enough excuse to shit on everyone and everything, when Carla is his girlfriend and he'll see her in five days. “Where's Ander?”

“With his dad,” Omar reaches for another juice pouch leisurely and smirks ironically when Samuel punches the straw through one, too. “Not so bad, huh?”

“Shut up,” Samuel chuckles. “Let's just – do something.”

They play the only (ancient) video game Omar owns, Samuel manages to narrowly beat him in the car race and life doesn't seem that bad anymore when Omar presses the _Capri Sun_ to hit Samuel with a very narrow streak of sugar molten in fruit concentrates.

Yes, they're six years old and have a juice war. Then, Omar has the genius idea to invite themselves over to Rebeka's, they have an actual water fight with a hose in the garden and Samuel laughs so hard that he didn't think it was possible.

Their teeth chatter under the moonlit sky (spraying water on each other in November is truly a pinnacle of their combined intelligence), Samuel smiles at the stars and realizes that he's _happy_.

¤

She picks up on the second ring. “Hey,” her voice is soft, like caramel and fluttering butterfly wings.

(No, he's not good at creative writing and _metaphors_. That's why he's barely scraping a B in a Spanish class he'd already taken once.)

“Hi,” he half-whispers. The cotton of his sheets is not nearly as soft as Carla's voice, but pretty good nevertheless. “I'm sorry I didn't call you yesterday or on Monday. I was busy and had to work and-”

“It's fine, I get it,” Carla assures him. He can imagine exactly what she looks like, tiny half-silver moon smile under the silver moonlight with her silver strands glistening in her hair. “I miss you though.”

“Me too,” Samuel's stomach churns with acidic guilt despite her words. “You don't know how much. But I only have to survive the entire dread of tomorrow until I can see you.”

“Shit, are you reading this from Shakespeare or what?” Carla teases. Now, there's a dimple on her left chin.

“That's actually a pretty good compliment,” he's not fazed, lips curling up involuntarily.

“That's why it's ironic,” Carla snorts, then he hears a dull sound and a curse putting a stop to her criticisms.

“What?”

“Nothing, my textbook just fell. I have to get this done before the weekend,” Carla shuffles something around on the other side. “You know, the grind never stops.”

Now it's Samuel's turn to smirk. “The _grind_?”

“Don't ask. A lecture on productivity from my suddenly self-help-book obsessed friend. I literally feel like a criminal for not having a colour-coded post-it noted planner.” He knows she's rolling her eyes. “What are _you_ doing?”

“I'm in bed, actually.”

“What? It's just-”

“Half past ten? Not that horrible if you ask me. And I had to work night shifts these past two days so that I could fit everything in.”

Silence. “Maybe _you_ need a colour-coded planner.”

“It's fine, I can hold it in my brain.”

“Well, I'd obviously never underestimate you.”

“You do it all the time,” Samuel murmurs, smile glued to each of his words.

“Oh, please. You know that's just jokes.” He hears a _ding_ in the distance – probably her microwave or something.”In reality, I only think the best about you.”

“Oh please,” he mimicks, words slurring in his exhaustion. “You don't even believe that.”

“Of course I do,” Carla says softly. For a second, it feels like she's next to him, voice heavy with sincerity coming out of her mouth and her rosy coloured cheeks a testament to the truth.

But it's just a metal box by his ear. “I can't wait to see you,” Samuel mumbles, half-asleep.

“Me too. Now, go to sleep, you're already kinda doing it anyway,” Carla's laugh is stifled but bright, tone tender but decisive.

It's not like he wouldn't do anything she says no matter _how_ she says it.

“I love you,” Samuel says. Or thinks? He doesn't know.

“I love you too,” Carla whispers. “Good night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so this is a forgiving universe everyone is happy and over their trauma. is that realistic? no. is that good? yes.  
> thanks for reading, your kudos and comments <3 also thanks for all the propmpts you sent me on tumblr last week and thanks for waiting for this and not giving up on me lmao


	6. found love where it wasn't supposed to be (talk some sense to me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiii! this time, it didn't take me 4567876 years to update, who would've thought? (i'm pretty impressed with myself, not gonna lie. also considering that i usually try to go for 4k words per chapter in this story and this has like 5.4). i really hope you'll enjoy this!  
> title is from _i found_ by amber run. (aka one of the most carmuel songs ever that a) is obviously in my carmuel playlist so that's enough to make me cry and b) makes me feel EXTREMELY lonely. in conclusion, i love that song bc my music taste is just like soft vocalized depression.)

Carla lies in her bed, ugly modern matte blinds shut, stares at the ceiling and can't stop her heart from beating fast.

It's two twenty-five at night and she has an exhausting day behind her, an exhausting day ahead of her, a long-standing sleep deficit, and her eyes are wide-open like there's something for them to extract from the dark.

She's going to Madrid tomorrow.

The excitement because she'll see Samuel is not the only cause for her rapid heartbeat. No, as much as she'd like it to be, it's not just the happy anticipation.

It's nothing short of panic.

Carla hasn't been to Madrid since June.

She left for the sole reason of never wanting to come back. Turn around the page. _Rip it out._ Leave everything behind.

She probably would've been able to achieve that (leaving everything behind) if there wasn't a certain someone who, like her, couldn't leave every _one_ behind as much as he wanted, or at least tried.

So, yes. Samuel is her own personal blessing and a curse. He's the tie to the city in which she lost, at least for periods of time, about everything one can lose in life. (The most notable examples include her childhood best friend, sanity, family, love, will to live, control and childhood boyfriend, in chronological order.)

And upon that, her thoughts stray into what has lately been their favourite territory. It's entirely _not_ on Carla's accord that they drift off their course and back to this topic, anytime, anywhere (once, at the supermarket, the cashier had to assault her with a polite _Miss_ three times to get her to snap out and pay.)

She knows that Samuel will not let her, under any circumstances, pay for his tuition abroad, but that doesn't mean she doesn't still hopefully cling to the idea. Just imagining Samuel with her in London, maybe somewhere else, not in this ugly-ass apartment but somewhere in an artsy hipsterish neighbourhood (she has to admit that she has no idea where these would even be located, but she'd started some internet investigation already), with a big actual couch that doesn't irritate your skin because the material is so fucking disgusting and it's for some reason rectangular under your ass, polaroids on the walls instead of ugly modern art, half-dying plants (she has no illusions about her _or_ Samuel's green thumbs) instead of weird ass sculptures. They could have their own basil and maybe try not to let it die in two weeks. They could spend late nights studying curled up in each other _and_ a blanket, because cotton with acrylic just haven't been enough to keep her warm in London's horrific mix of autumn and winter.

Carla sighs softly, suddenly back with her feet on the ground again, remembering that none of this is going to happen because Samuel is just so fucking stubborn. He could maybe get a scholarship, but she's not naïve – by going to Las Encinas, he kinda lost his economically-disadvantaged spike, therefore he just has his better-average academic results (not) playing in his favour, not to mention that if the (temporary) expulsion is on his record, that just disregards his chances entirely. She doubts the entire traumatic murder story would be of any help in his personal statement, even though it did certainly make him diligent, ersilient, and a problem-solver.

She rolls over, stares at his WhatsApp photo. He was last online three hours ago, so he's probably asleep like a normal person. Carla sends him an _are you awake_ text, which predictably doesn't get delievered, throws the phone into her four extra pillows (grey linen bedsheets, ew – she seriously needs to make some changes unless she wants to choke on her hatred for this place) and gets up from her bed.

She tiptoes to the kitchen, the cold tiles burning her bare feet, puts the water to boil, gets a mint tea sachet and stares at the ugly rectangular clock on the wall.

_Could_ she move back to Madrid?

Don't get her wrong, she doesn't hate the city. She _can't_. Despite everything, it was (is) her home, but that doesn't make anything easier. Perhaps it makes everything more complicated.

The clock makes an annoying ticking sound. She doesn't understand why these pretentious high-end interior designers couldn't at least make it quiet if they already failed at not making it disgusting.

She prepares her tea, puts ice into it to cool it down (it's her _best-kept from the English people_ secret – it's not her fault that when she wants to drink something, she wants it _now_ ), sips, burns her tongue because it's still too hot and scrunches her cold, pale toes in a desperate attempt to get her blood flowing and bring up to the surface some genius solution hidden in her insides.

There's nothing. She hears every second pass her by.

Carla taps her manicure on the porcellain cup before standing up and decisively walking back to her bed. She sets the mug on her bedside table, tucks herself into the covers and, like so many times before, gives up.

It's not like Carla to give up, but it's also not like her to pointlessly dwell on issues that can't be resolved.

She closes her eyes just to open them again when she feels her phone light up.

_No, can't wait to see you <3_

Her fingers fly across the keyboard, her lip curving up impatiently. It feels like she's had this compulsion to smile forever, and when she finally can, a surge of relief spreads across her entire body.

_Me too._

She has to tell herself every day that she's not giving up. She hasn't given up; she will _eventually_ work everything out.

But for now, she's just enjoying the moment.

¤

For some reason, her normally sized carry-on that is usually perfect for weekend trips feels too small. Carla contemplates, throws out the mildly ugly wool hat, puts it back, throws it out again. When she decides that sweatpants take up too much space and leggings are enough, and the bulky pair of tennis shoes is denied their place in her luggage as well, she's finally able to close it with a bit of bullying (she may or may not have had to sit on the suitcase).

She perches sunglasses atop of her head, slides into her boots with not much of a heel (she's being _so_ considerate), slips into her black Ralph Lauren coat and almost leaves without her keys.

Jesus.

She paranoidly checks all of her bags in three-second intervals on the metro after that incident, but that doesn't help when she almost leaves her suitcase in the bathroom after fixing her make-up. Thank god for the nice middle-aged woman.

Okay, so, yes, she might be freaking out, but she also needs to get a fucking grip. Carla occupies herself with finishing up a project on her laptop, sitting across her gate (she's chosen the spot strategically because with her current state of mind, she'd be capable of missing the flight without this constant reminder) and doesn't let her mind wander off marketing strategies.

_I'm boarding in 10 minutes_ , she sends a quick text and tries to put the phone aside to return to her presentation, but after she changes the layout for the third time from light to dark green, she reaches for her purse again, begrudgingly scrolls back to the unread message and adds: _I'm expecting the same quality service that I provided for you at the airport._

_Of course ;))_

Carla smiles and closes her laptop. That was about enough business for the day.

Now comes the pleasure.

¤

Of course her flight's take-off has a fifty minute delay. Carla feels like a child with ADHD who was given way too much candy and then told to sit still. The Madrid air on her cheeks a couple hours later is an awaited salvation, and she also remembers to _never_ complain about it being cold or raining in Madrid again. In a weird mixture of fast steps, graceful strides when she realizes what she's doing, all while wanting to hop like a happy rabbit to give herself some sort of outlet, she makes her way through the well-known airport and tries not to think about the more catastrophic family vacations that all started from there.

She can't say that she's surprised when she doesn't outright spot Samuel by the arrivals. Honestly, she still kind of finds it hard to believe that she didn't have to rescue him from Heathrow with a police sniffing dog or something. She simply takes out her phone and starts typing _I'm here_.

“Boo.”

She almost gets a heart attack when someone hugs her from behind. It's quickly replaced by an undefinable warmth and tingling across her whole body once she breathes in Samuel's familiar scent and feels his touch.

“Jesus,” she turns around swiftly. He looks like a – dork. His untamed hair forms these two tufts, each on one side of his head, that make him look like the most improbable devil. His eyes are sparkly with childish excitement and his smile is so wide that it must have a stretchy botox effect on his skin. His cheeks, somehow, are red from the wind and cold, which she realizes is probably because he's stupidly only wearing a long-sleeved shirt. “What are you, fi-”

He pulls her in by the waist and kisses her. Carla drops the handle of her suitcase and with it also all her remaining complaints.

The warmth, not _heat_ , flows through her whole body in massive currents and she thinks she couldn't be cold even if she was wearing a bikini.

“I missed you,” Samuel's the one to break the kiss. If it was up to her, she'd never stop. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Carla bites down her uncontrollable smile. She's in a _dream_. Everything is literally floating and covered in rainbow sparkles and fairy dust and she doesn't know what to do first. She feels as if she's about to explode with feelings. “Me too.”

“Should we?”

“Yeah, yeah, let's go,” she agrees hurriedly, lets him take her luggage for her with one hand and intertwine their fingers with the other. She looks at their hands and feels caught in a storm of _happy_ during the entire walk across the parking lot. The times she stares at his face, she knows that he's feeling the exact same. Samuel literally looks like the heart-eyed emoji, and although she might hate emojis, she also kind of wants to take a picture of him right now and then flood it with millions of those little annoying in-love suckers in the description under it.

“How was the flight?” Samuel asks, tone so cheery that it sounds like he's just received the best news ever, like a lifetime supply of candy or something, and definitely does not fit the topic of transportation.

“Well, delayed,” Carla answers plainly, shrugs her shoulders, looks at his face and feels an uncontrollable urge to kiss him in the middle of the asphalt square. “But it's fine, cause now I'm here.”

_I can't believe it,_ she almost says. Turns her head and sees the exact thing written in his face.

Samuel beams at her, unrestrained, grabs her by the waist and she leans into his stride while he kisses her temple. “I love you,” he whispers into her hair.

Carla's positive that her pupils are more dilated than on the highest dose of Molly she'd ever taken.

Samuel smiles at her, face full of content, grabs her hand and suitcase handle back into their original positions, and continues their walk over the parking lot.

Maybe it's how _casual_ it is that makes Carla feel like she'll burst into tears. She doesn't think she's ever experienced such intense joy that she would have to excrete it from her body because there was too much of it.

“By the way, Guzmán lent me the car and if I crash it, he's gonna kill me,” Samuel brings up lightheartedly at Carla's lightly confused gaze when he presses the _open_ button on the car keys. “And I don't really have a license, but-”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Carla drapes herself into the passenger seat impatiently, not waiting for Samuel to open the door for her because he's putting her suitcase in the trunk. When he climbs into the seat next to her five seconds later, he looks mildly astounded. “That was a joke, though I only got it last week. But good to know that you have zero self-preservation instincts and will get into a car with literally anyone.”

“Maybe I just wanna be home with you, haven't you thought of that,” Carla purses her lips just for them to break into a smirk (and feels a bit of relief).

“If you tell me stuff like this, I'm seriously gonna get us into an accident,” Samuel raises his eyebrow, half-jokingly, and Carla slaps his hand lightly.

“Jesus, if I knew that the first thing I'd get here would be death threats, maybe I would've thought twice about coming.”

The warm brown in Samuel's eyes glistens with a sliver of greyish insecurity, so she initiates an ironic, loving eye-roll and he shakes his head. “Sorry, _mylady_. I promise not to kill you.” He leans to her ear and whispers: “It would be the utmost shame.”

¤

It's been a year since she was last in his apartment.

The realization takes over her when she thinks that it _feels_ like it's been a year. More years, probably. An eternity.

The lock pops and Samuel opens the door for her. Carla unknowingly sucks her breath in and crosses over the doorstep.

It doesn't really smell like cigarettes anymore, though there's still a subtle lingering. Honestly, it mostly doesn't smell like anything because the apartment's the cleanest Carla's ever seen it, but to her, it just smells like peace.

She'll literally never share any of these extremely cheesy and also kinda irrational thoughts with Samuel, because if she did, she'd become the ridiculous one in this relationship, and she absolutely can't let that happen.

_Relationship._

Carla sets her emotions free, looks at Samuel with pure _love_ in her eyes, knows he can read it, and kisses him in the middle of the living room. She can leave preserving her dignity for another day.

“It's still the same here,” she whispers into his skin, cologne and _him_ mixing into the most infatuating fragrance. “I love it.”

“I love _you_ ,” Samuel says.

He always has to be better than her at this _feelings_ thing, doesn't he?

“I love you too,” Carla breathes out, the second half of her sentence swallowed in his mouth when she realizes that there might be a thing in which she could compete with him.

Samuel's touch reminds her instantly that there's no competition.

There's just a... connection. Blend. Confluence.

Screw it. _Harmony._ He doesn't know what concentrated romantic bullshit her brain is completely plagued with.

She opens her eyes for a second, sees the sparkles in his as she takes him in and realizes that she'd tell him all about it, and then dig up even the most trivial nonsense from the furthest corner of her mind to share, if he asked for it.

¤

“You know what the weirdest thing about you is?”

“What?” Carla investigates lazily, half her body thrown over Samuel's. “If you want to start with the _weird_ topic, just let me prepare you, I think you're gonna lose.”

“It's that you're so different than how you make yourself seem,” he completely ignores her, absently playing with a strand of her hair. Carla gets goosebumps on her skin, which prompt him to hug her properly instead of their limbs just randomly twisting around each other. “Like, I remember when you told me your favourite food was pancakes. I thought it was the weirdest thing that you liked something so sugary and unsophisticated. I would've taken you for like, sushi or some super complicated half-raw thing that I don't even know exists and definitely can't pronounce.”

Carla huffs lowly into his hand on her chest, but doesn't say anything, even though Samuel's favourite food, _pizza_ , is definitely way less sophisticated than pancakes, excuse her.

“But then I realized that would be the food you'd _say_ you like, but your favourite food, the thing you actually like, is something else altogether. And then I realized that it's actually perfectly fitting,” Samuel finishes, breathing into her nape. “For the real you.”

“You got a lot from me liking dessert,” she raises her eyebrow. “Did they ever tell you that maybe you think too much?”

“Yes, definitely, but _you_ usually tell me I think too little,” Samuel shudders, just a tad petulant, but mostly amused. His grip of her tightens but he lets go of her when he realizes that she only wants to roll to her other side.

“You know, you are exactly what I thought you'd be like,” Carla says quietly once their noses are almost touching and his arm is shielding her from the other direction. “Even completely in accordance with your food preferences.”

“Yeah? What would that be?” Samuel asks, glint in his eyes a bit of amusement and mostly curiosity.

“Embarrassing,” Carla bites her lip mischeviously, tries to say it plainly but the smirk is still audible.

“ _Embarrassing_ ,” Samuel repeats flatly, staring straight into her eyes. “Well, then I guess you're the real embarrassment here, because you somehow fell for that.”

“Don't remind me,” Carla whispers, kisses him. “Only you would bring up favourite food-based psychoanalysis in pillowtalk.”

“I don't need to try, it works,” Samuel breaks one of their kisses.

_Oh, just shut up_ , Carla thinks, but decides not to push it further, hooks her leg over him and rolls on top of him eventually.

She's in a bit of a daze after a few minutes, just kinda floating on elation, so when s _omething_ makes her snap out of the blur and she sees Samuel's face in the highest contrast, every colour more vibrant, eyes so dark whe could get lost in them and skin so bronze that he could be displayed in a museum, and each feature sharper, like he was outlined by some artist who didn't like curves, just _drama_.

She feels like she's fucking a Greek god.

The old Carla would've snapped at herself for this stupid thought for a number of reasons, but Carla now is a different person althogether.

She might be fucking a Greek god, but she loves Samuel. The realest person on Earth.

She bends down to kiss him, because words don't seem like enough.

“You know, maybe my favourite food are your disgusting noodles now,” she says later, when she's not completely breathless. “Don't tell anyone, but I think you broke my brain, _love_.”

He hums contently, pulls her into his embrace, kisses the top of her head.

Doesn't tease her even though she'd deserve it.

¤

She wakes him up at seven forty-five, relentlessly, uncompromisingly. She uses one of the more enviable tactics, but still – he literally tells her to _fuck off_ when she keeps kissing him.

Takes only two minutes to get him sufficiently awake to be into it.

“You have no idea how sleep-deprived I am,” he complains half-heartedly. Carla wants to snort.

“We don't have much time. We won't waste it by _sleeping_ ,” she explains, already halfway out of bed. “Come on.”

“You're so annoying,” Samuel complains, bedheaded and sleepy-eyed. “Seriously, I just-”

“Get up,” Carla threatens when he's still in his half-sat half-laid position after a period of time she deems unacceptable. (Okay, maybe it was like five seconds.) “We're going out to get breakfast. Like normal people.”

“Normal people sleep at least until nine on a Saturday,” Samuel protests, rubbing his eyes.

Carla groans, walks back to the bed, crawls on all fours on the mattress, reaches for a pillow and whacks it over Samuel's head. “Wake up.”

His position remains unchanged for a concerningly long amount of time, but what is perhaps even more concerning is the frequency of his blinking. Just when Carla opens her mouth to ask if he's okay or whether she'd managed to break his brain (oh, _come on_ ) Samuel rises unexpectedly, grabs her by the waist and semi-lifts her up. “You think you can be so mean and aggressive to your boyfriend?”

Carla gasps, not entirely because of the _boyfriend_ – that was her primary reason, but then she ends up under his body, under his hands, squirming and teetering and laughing and begging as he runs his fingers down and up her sides. “Samuel, sto-”

“Did you seriously think your actions wouldn't have consequences?” he asks. She can't take that seriously, not now, when his face is sun-lit and his hair is still a bird nest mess and his dimples are so prominent.

She bursts out laughing louder than before, the tickling and awful _talk_ mixing into horrible, uncontrollable cramping chuckles. “If you say that – again, I'm – actually gonna – die,” she manages to get out. “Seri-”

He shuts her up with a kiss, quitting the merciless torture in favour of cupping her cheeks.

When she opens her mouth immediately, he breathes out, hot: “What about the breakfast for normal people?”

Carla pulls him down, knowing they're thinking the exact same thing.

_It can wait a little._

¤

Samuel looks like a complete child in front of the vitrine full of rainbow-coloured macarons. It's kind of adorable how his eyes tick between all the flavours.

“Lavender with cherry? Oh come on, how would that even-”

Carla giggles. “Just get as many as you want.”

He gives her an entirely inappropriate strict look. “Absolutely not. I'm paying.”

“Absolutely not. This is my childhood café.” When the outrage in his eyes doesn't subside, she takes his hand and says softly: “Please. I just wanna show you my childhood spots. You can pay for the pizza you buy in the metro.”

The gears in his brain whirr for a second, like he's picking his battles, then he smiles reluctantly at her and nods. “Okay. And you're making fun of it, but the number of evenings we had four slices inbetween the three of us for dinner is staggering.”

Carla ignores him, not entirely on purpose – she's busy asking for all of the flavours she thinks he won't hate (skips on matcha) to get packed ito a box for later, then orders a simple raspberry and pistacchio to be brought with their breakfast, and finally grabs Samuel's hand and goes over to the waiter to ask to be shown to a free place for two.

“I feel like a French girl,” Samuel grins at her from the other side of the round table by the window.

“It's glamorous, isn't it?” Carla agrees delightedly. Her heart might burst. They get croissants, butter and jam, coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice, she manages to swerve Samuel's attention from the menu prices by just ordering straight ahead, and he seems to forget about it once there is an exemplar of objectively the _best pastry in the world_ in his hand.

“Oh my god, this is so good,” he mumbles, mouth full of flakes. “Mpfh-”

Carla chuckles contently. She knows firsthand that eating authentic French pastries for the first time is nothing short of a spiritual experience. She takes out her phone and snaps a quick photo.

“What?” Samuel asks, articulation lacking, mouth full of food.

“I don't know, I just thought this moment had to be captured,” Carla grins and slides the phone over the table for him to look. “See?”

“Yeah, I look like an idiot.”

“You look like a _cute_ idiot,” she corrects him, sips her coffee with her pinky lifted. She swears she's not being pretentious. “The best kind of idiot, if you ask me.”

“Maybe I'd prefer not to be an idiot at all,” he protests begrudgingly, but spreading more butter on his croissant seems to completely cancel out his mood. “But I guess we need to be realistic.”

Carla bites her teeth together in the ugliest, most genuine smile she's capable of, puts each of her hands on one of her newly chubby cheeks and rests her elbows on the table, patiently observing Samuel. He smirks at her.

She doesn't even try to cover her face from the cruelly honest camera of his Xiaomi. “You know, if you put that up somewhere, you're dead,” she just raises her eyebrow. That picture is even worse than she thought possible.

“It's called mutually assured destruction, babe,” he observes ironically, putting his phone away.

“I'm an expert on that, _babe_ ,” Carla snickers.

He grins at her, but his facial expression gains a certain thoughtful sharpness after a look on her face. “I think we already knew about that.”

She snorts. “Yeah. It's like we invented that or something.”

“America and the Soviet Union have nothing on us.”

She eyes him, dazed. “Do you seriously _have_ to be such a nerd?”

“Says you, who reads Jane Austen for fun,” he points out casually, drinking juice. She's glad he's not complaining about the pulp, because that is the best part, and she's not sure she could take it if he was one of the annoying no-texture people. Anyway-

“There's a difference between a _nerd_ and an _intellectual_ ,” she informs him, look pointed.

He shakes his head blissfully. “There's also a difference between _nice_ and _mean_.”

She catches the twinkle in his eye and decides to cut it. She stands up, leans her body over the croissants and coffee and orange juice, prays to all the gods her sweater will come out of this unstained, and reaches to kiss him. “You know you like me better mean.”

“I like to think I like you no matter what.”

Her heart kind of skips a beat.

Kissing over a table with breakfast foods laid out isn't exactly practical or comfortable, but screw it.

Carla's in _love_. She's set on enjoying every ounce of this unbridled happiness.

¤

Her detailed itinerary for the day is threatened when they're walking towards the door to leave the café, paper box of macarons in that hand of Samuel's that's not holding hers, and she hears a _cough_.

It's a very distinct type, bound to be followed by a fakely overjoyed yet still proper: “Carla?”

She turns around, her heartbeat spiking with a truly concerning acceleration. She prays that she'd plastered the _social_ smile on her face quickly enough and the panic flashed in her eyes too fleetingly for anyone to notice.

“Carla! I knew it was you! What a lovely coincidence it is to run into you!”

_Hardly_ , Carla thinks when the woman kisses her on both cheeks. Thankfully, none of those sentiments reflect into her appropriately gleeful greeting.

Leonor, her mother's _philantrophic circles friend,_ doesn't let anything show by a pursing of her lips or any other fault on her mask, but Carla caught the tiniest little tick to where her hand is joint with Samuel's. It makes it very hard for her to keep her breathing and thoughts calmly paced.

“So, I heard you were studying in the UK?” Leonor, whose cream mink coat seems way too heavy for the temperature of the café – just like the true meaning of this conversation – starts with her first subtle suggestion.

It takes everything for Carla not to grit her teeth. “I am,” she smiles politely instead.

“That must be exciting! Which school was it again?”

“King's College London. It is _splendid_ ,” Carla smiles so wide it makes her face ache. Samuel's hand in hers is getting sweaty. (Or maybe it's her own.)

“So, you're just visiting town for the weekend,” the woman correctly assumes, doesn't even wait for Carla to finish her polite nod to continue. Clearly, her patience has been exhausted. “I didn't hear you'd be coming from your mother, and I just saw her yesterday at the benefit. Did you not arrive in time to make it? It was _exquisite_.”

Carla wants to stab Leonor in the middle of her face with that sword that's displayed on the wall (don't ask her why – probably an artefact found in the area or some knight who lived in the place in the 1500s or something. Or maybe just someone thinking ahead for cases such as this one). Nevertheless, it's not like it's not clear from Leonor's piercing black eyes that she's already sure of the answer.

“No,” Carla smiles sweetly. “I was unfortunately preoccupied with different obligations, though I had already arrived in Madrid yesterday.” She squeezes Samuel's hand and hopes this didn't make him want to laugh – he's capable of that just as well as of running out the door in panic or fumbling about the weather if the woman paid him any attention.

“ _Oh_. Of _course,”_ Leonor utters predictably, smile tight. “But I see you've still retained the fondness for the _petit déjeuneur_ here.”

“Of course,” Carla just wishes now for her to address the elephant in the room, so that they can finish this, get out and she'll finally be able to _breathe_. “I don't think it's possible to lose that. If you come to _Montmartre_ once, you're bound to return.”

The woman lets a microscopic sigh escape through the parting of her lips, probably upon finally reaching a decision. “Definitely. So, you're showing the addictive art of French cuisine to your companion here?” Charasteristic for forceful finnesse, it's said light-heartedly, but Leonor's eyes don't smile with it at all. Her gaze is like a freeze ray – Carla thinks the temperature has simultaneously dropped below zero and grown to over forty degrees.

It's not like she hasn't been calculating her options the entire time, and she's sure Samuel has been too, but they still both palpably stiffen. Carla bites her lip from the inside secretly, lets herself have a split-second more for preparation and then forces her shoulders to relax, her eyes to transmit forced calm, smile at Leonor and say: “Yes. I think Samuel and I dating would be out of question if he didn't appreciate it properly.”

She can practically hear the buzzing in Leonor's brain. “He has, I assume,” the woman smiles at her, now completely unable to conceal the stiffness of it. “Appreciated it.”

“Definitely,” Carla nods nonchalantly, ignores her heart wanting to jump out of her chest and grips Samuel's hand even more. He lets her, as if he knew why she needs it – which is most likely true. “Now, it was lovely to see you, Leonor, but I am sure we both have other things to attend to.” _Like immediately calling my parents with your eyes on top of your head._

“Of course,” the woman nods. “It was lovely to see you, Carla. And – _good luck_.”

_Fuck_ , Carla thinks when they make an elegant escape through the door. Her walk becomes much less graceful once they're out in the sharp air on the brink of winter.

“Shit,” she hears an echo of Samuel's voice.

“Post that picture,” she hears herself say.

“What?”

She's already taking out her phone and manically swliping through filters on her instagram story. “Post that ugly disgusting picture of me to your instagram story.”

“Car-”

“Just. Do. It.”

Samuel raises an eyebrow, dips his hand into his jacket pocket to take out his phone and clicks around. He shows her the finished product, a yellow heart emoji and a warmer colouring. Her username is in the corner. “You're gonna regret this,” he says half-jokingly, clearly not alluding to how Carla looks like a grinning mess in the photo.

“No, I won't,” Carla says sharply, first sends his story into the dangerous waters of the internet and then posts her own.

Samuel clicks his lips, the wet sound encompassing all of his doubt.

Carla props her hand on his shoulder and kisses him. It's not particularly provocative, but she's sure he can still taste the meaning and the fury.

“Fuck them,” she rumbles when they pull apart, eyes sparkling with reds and oranges. “Fuck them, fuck what they think, fuck what they want. I don't give a shit. I don't _have to_ give a shit. They never did anything for me other than what suited them. I was never more than an _instrument_ for what they needed.” She breathes out, heavy, quick, jagged, looks into Samuel's eyes, deeply staring, on her, _in_ her. “Not anymore.”

“Okay,” he says, after a moment, tone so soft that it almost makes her feel ashamed of herself. He's rosy and subdued, and she's a _mess gone rogue._

The exact thing she can't be. The exact thing she could _never_ be.

_Fuck them._

She yells it at two in the morning, the flashing red in the club providing a suitable scenery, at least. She also posts a story from there. It's not the VIP area.

Samuel doesn't (need to) ask who _they_ are.

He just kisses her under the neon lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i wanted to find an actual high-end french café in madrid but tripadvisor's usefulness for research purposes sucked for some reason and then i just gave up lol. i also know that this is like 99% fluff and honestly this entire story is 99% fluff (and there's more to come, bc rn we are at the beginning of december... which is also why i'm trying to update so fast, yk, to time the christmas chapter and i hope i'll make it). but anyway, that's just where the story is bringing me and that's just how it is, if anyone gets diabetes from this i'm sorry. thanks for your comments and kudos and everything and ily all <3


	7. i can't sleep at night, at least not alone (not anymore)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> peep me speed-posting (or like, panic-posting) so that i can publish the christmas chapter before/on christmas! (the plan's going well so far, it should be up on the 23rd probably because i won't really have much time on actual christmas and the main celebration is christmas eve here). so i hope you like that <3  
> the title is from _lost my mind_ by finneas. i LOVE finneas as it is but shoutout to rae who doesn't even read this or isn't even invested in carmuel for reminding me of that song as a "perfect carmuel song", which resulted in me playing it on loop for two weeks straight.   
> enjoy hh <3

Predictably, Carla wakes him up at eight-thirty, completely ignoring the threats of the previous (this) night that _if she tries to get him out of bed earlier than at ten, bad things are going to happen_.

She makes them the disgustingly bitter and still somehow weak instant coffee though. This compensation for waking him up on the one day he has to refill his energy stores is as weak as the coffee, but Samuel burns his tongue and kisses Carla because-

Well, because. Because it's not like he has an unlimited amount of time and opportunity to kiss Carla, and also because she's pretty breathtaking.

Her flight leaves at 16.20, so he figures she's (as usual) right about them not sleeping until noon. This way, they have almost a full eight hours before she has to leave, which is a third of a day, which is a decent chunk of time.

His heart stings like it's calling him out on his lie. He refocuses on Carla, eyes shining, skin glowing, hair in effortless golden locks, the ugly advertisment mug of some statistics company in both of her hands as she sips the hot brown _water_.

“I'm sorry, the coffee's disgusting,” he points to the cup. “Not by your fault, it just can't be made well. It's not even coffee, really. It's a menace compared to what you drink.”

Carla swallows and darts her tongue over her upper lip briefly. “It's totally fine,” she says plainly, takes another sip to add credibility to her words and keeps a straight face.

He kind of wants to disagree just for the sole purpose of it, but one look at Carla's face stops him. She somehow manages to transmit exactly what she wants from him just in the way her jaw softens but eyes stay just a little strict.

So he just smiles at her and drinks his own. A moment later, Carla moves her chair noisily across the floor, so that the two pieces of furniture and the two of them are completely side by side, leans her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes.

He draws little spirals on her palm with his free hand.

“I wish we could stay like this forever.”

“Me too,” Carla says, soft and dreamy and innocent, like spring rain, like glass-beaded bracelets reflecting sunrays into rainbow beams. “I kind of don't want anything more right now.”

He should probably be concerned with this sentimentalism because it's not like that's normal for her, but the way she speaks, so honest and peaceful, disregards anything close to a doubt forming in his head.

Carla could say or do just about anything in that way of hers to make him speechless. He doesn't even know what the way _is_ , just that it makes him feel like it's all he needs in life.

With her close to him, he could stop breathing and wouldn't notice.

It just wouldn't seem important.

¤

Samuel sighs when his phone, in an extremely unusual fashion, can't stop buzzing in his pocket.

They're trying to take a peaceful walk (they wanted to go see a movie, but all they show at eleven-thirty are cartoons, and neither him nor Carla are desperate enough to willfully waltz into a dark room filled with screeching children and spent 90 minutes in there – not that he doesn't like kids). Anyway, maybe the cinema would've been better, because their phones would be turned off and not swamped with, in Samuel's case, new instagram follows from people he doesn't know (peculiar), and in Carla's, probably a myriad of messages from a variety of sources.

“I'm actually kinda excited to get on the plane,” Carla sighs, her brows furrowing over what he guesses is a particularly unpleasant text. “You know, flight mode.” She looks at him like she's just only realized what she said. “Not that I want to go away from you-”

“No, I get it,” he says, because honestly, right now, he just wants to throw his phone into the ocean or something. He'd forgotten entirely about a certain problem called his brother, and though Nano has to keep it lowkey and they can't communicate via normal channels including instagram, because he's still kind of a criminal on the run, he's sure that the news will get to him in one way or the other. He's _not_ looking forward to that confrontation.

“Guess I'm gonna break the airplane mode exclusivity,” Carla slides her thumb up, but before she can signify her words by a tap on the white and gray icon, the phone buzzes again and there's a name.

Carla raises her eyebrow before answering. “Hello?”

“Who is it?” Samuel asks noisily, almost bumping their heads as he props himself closer to the phone so that he can hear.

“Your waiter loverboy's now delivering pizza in London or what?” a series of disrupted sounds is exuded from the phone. Samuel furrows his brows slightly.

“Are you drunk, Lu?” Carla asks what he _thinks._

“Just a little!” There's an enthusiastic scream in the background. “And I'm serious! How did that ha-”

“Lu, I can't hear you, it's breaking out,” Carla articulates every word perfectly and a little too loudly, even though Samuel is sure that her efforts will be in vain. “Just call me when you're sober and I can tell you all about it, 'kay? Bye.” She hangs up with a slight, blissful shake of her head. “That's actually one of the nicer reactions.”

“I'm that controversial, huh?” he attempts to joke, but the way his stomach clenches isn't helping his admittedly fake carefree tone.

“What time is it in New York?” Carla ignores him. “Like, six hours less? That makes it five-thirty in the morning. Jesus.”

“Guess she's having a wild night,” Samuel shrugs. “Weird she only decided to ask you about it a whole day late.”

“No, that's normal,” Carla disagrees, thoughtful look on her face. “Cause she wouldn't have made that decision to call me if she was sober.”

There's sadness creeping under her words. Samuel doesn't know how to fix it.

“She has an awful amount of wild nights,” Carla continues, fingernails slowly tapping on her ocean-blue silicone case. “I don't know. I hope she's doing okay.” A second of silence. “I hope she'd tell me if she was _really_ not doing okay.”

“Yeah,” he breathes out dumbly. He puts is arm around her shoulder for some semblance of comfort though he's not distinctly sure what improvement it could cause. “But she has Nadia. You can call her and ask, but she's still on the other side of the ocean.” He pauses – his own words sound ill-advised to him. “You just have to trust that she can take care of herself. Or has people there who'll do it when she can't.”

“I know,” Carla says silently, half muffled into his jacket, half set free into the morning breeze. “I just wish I could help her. I know exactly what it feels like to have the weight of a secret crushing your bones.”

He doesn't say anything to that, mostly because she looks vaguely regretful after her last word leaves her mouth. He just pulls her closer and breathes in the scent of her flowery perfume and sweet shampoo.

¤

The airport is packed. Maybe he doesn't have much to compare with, because he's been here three times in his life, and only once inside this main hall for departures, technically. Still. It feels as if the entire population of Spain had decided to go on vacation just to spite him.

The all-around buzz is entirely inconvenient. It's a disrupting frequency that breaks off the thoughts in his brain, so there's no chance he'll actually be able to form a coherent sentence.

So it's Carla who does the talking. “I'll keep you updated on when I can come next. My Christmas break officially starts in three weeks, but maybe my exams will be over sooner. I don't have the schedule yet.”

“Uh. Yeah,” Samuel retorts. _Christmas_. He hasn't even thought of that, but now his brain is flooded with weird, abstract worries. He has no idea what the hell he will do on Christmas. Nano and his mum – have they even thought of him? Could they possibly come? Could he possibly go to Morocco?

Does he even _want to_?

“Samuel?”

“Sorry,” he says, because he _is._ He's supposed to have some elaborate from-the-bottom-of-his-heart goodbye prepared for his girlfriend whose next meeting with him will be at an uncertain date, and all he's thinking about is that he might not have a Christmas tree for the holidays. (Or presents. Or a family.)

“It's fine,” Carla trails off, clearly also a bit lost. “You know, I've been thinking...”

“About?” he prompts her when her words diffuse into the overbearing noise. Some woman laughs loudly in the distance.

“I don't know,” Carla shakes her head. “Just – I'll keep you updated on my plans for the next weeks once I have a clearer idea. You'll be here, no?”

He almost wants to snort – it's not like he's _ever_ anywhere else. “Yeah,” he nods calmly instead. “Always.”

“And I can preliminarily count on seeing you for Christmas break?” Carla asks, tone forcibly unaffected. “I don't mean like, all of it or anything, I don't know about your plans, but you know, just-”

“Jump on the first plane you can catch when you're done and I'll be waiting,” he says, looking into her eyes seriously. Carla softens, her cold, calculating gaze melting, and he wraps his hands around her in a hug. “I promise.”

“I promise to come as soon as I can,” Carla says against his shoulder where her head's tucked in, not quite a whisper because it's far too loud, but something similar in atmosphere. “I already miss you, and I haven't even left yet.”

“That's kinda a misuse of time, but I know what you mean,” Samuel tries to make it funny, but then adds the second half of the sentence, because it doesn't seem fair to tell Carla that when he's in the exact same headspace. “I'll call you all the time. You call me whenever. Be it three in the morning when you're drunk.”

“You couldn't even stand waking up at half-past eight today,” Carla points out into his shoulder. “I don't think calling you drunk in the middle of the night is a good idea. Besides, I don't drink on school nights.”

“Okay, I can be a bit grumpy,” Samuel admits. “But you know that if you need me, you can call whenever, right? Actually, you _have to_.”

“Oh, I _have_ to,” Carla kind of sniffles, voice wetter. “That's good to know.”

Samuel kind of steps back from her to take a look at her face. There are tears welling in her eyes. “Hey,” he starts, all fake-positive, because seeing Carla about to cry makes him feel like he's about to cry, too, “I love you. And it's okay, it won't be that long. We'll see each other in three weeks, absolute longest.”

“I know,” Carla unelegantly wipes her nose with the back of her hand. None of her tears have fallen, which is at least good – he'd probably lose it too if she started crying. “And I love you too. I just wish I didn't have to leave all the time.”

He kisses her, short and tender, but they mostly just hug for an extremely long period of time. Carla in his arms is trying hard not to shake, and he's trying hard to seem solid and steady, which is difficult when you feel like someone's stabbing your chest repeatedly.

She lifts her head from his shoulder to kiss him, eyes still watery but cheeks still dry, then whispers: “I can't miss my flight.”

“Yeah,” Samuel manages over the lump in his throat.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The hug one last time, he waves at her until she gets lost in the line for customs, he turns around in pain and forces his legs to cooperate in walking him out of the building.

He really, really hates geography. And stupid scientists. Why couldn't they have just invented teleports already?

¤

There's another invention that science is terribly late on. A time-stretcher.

Exam week is next week, the rent is due next week, Guzmán is insisting they do some secret Santa bullshit within their friend group, which means that he has to find a present for Ander (that his budget can take – it's an absolute nightmare). Then there's Rebe, who is trying to make an effort in making everything as normal as possible, but that also means he can't turn her down when she invites him to go boxing.

Honestly, the only thing he wants to hit is his head, so that he'd maybe drop unconscious onto the floor and this impossible amount of stressful reminders of stuff he has to do always on the back of his mind would just _stop_ for a while.

He's just arrived home from her house, because after a few rounds, she'd correctly pointed out that hitting him like this just makes her feel inhumane and he needs to go to sleep. He almost fell off his bike on the way home. There's Physics he should look at, because he'd somehow managed to forget how this stupid shitty subject works despite the fact that he had an A average last school year. There's also Carla, to whom he sends a short, apologetic and unsophisticated message. Judging by the fashion her responses to _what she's doing_ during their latest phone conversations have consisted of variations for _schoolwork_ , if she posts something on her stories, it's a picture of a coffee and a textbook and a few neatly arranged highlighters, or how some of the quick pictures she snaps and texts him come mostly with descriptions like _my brain is frying_ , he thinks she's in a similar situation and won't hold his lacking communication against him if he just goes to sleep.

He's about to do just that, shuffling in his closet for a t-shirt (Carla's not here, so it isn't for anyone's benefit that he is cold at night, and he's trying to reduce his heating costs). Anyway, he picks up a grey one when the pre-paid phone hidden under his socks starts to vibrate.

He's happy, of course, but there's also a sharp pang of alarm striking through him. He has to breathe out heavily in a completely useless attempt to calm himself down before he accepts.

“Samu!” Nano's voice is jovial and excited. “So happy to hear you!”

“Me too,” Samuel says, calming down just by a tenth of a percent. Okay, maybe he _doesn't_ know. Maybe it's fine.

“I saw that you were hanging out with the diabolical blonde chick. Can you tell me what's happening?”

Or not.

Nano's never been particularly patient, but Samuel still thought that there'd be at least a _bit_ of small talk, to give him at least _some_ time to prepare. Now, he's like a fish out of water. He opens his mouth, then closes it again.

“Samu? I thought she'd have gone to like, America or Singapore or some shit and leave you alone?” Nano demands. Each of his words is more urgent than the previous one. “Tell me it was a one-time thing.”

“We're dating,” Samuel blurts out. Maybe it's good that he can't see Nano (or more accurately, that Nano can't see _him_ ). There is no way this would've ended well.

There is no way this _will_ end well even now.

The silence is deafening. Samuel nervously sucks his breath between his teeth and waits for Nano to break it. There's no way he's gonna speak now.

“You're not being serious,” Nano's voice is flat with an edge of fire. “Tell me you're not being serious.” Samuel doesn't reply, so Nano raises his voice. “Fucking shit, Samu, are you out of your fucking mind?” The clear condescension, the snort after his last word and the outrage he can imagine on Nano's face are steadily rising Samuel's body temperature. “She's like a fucking _curse_!”

Okay, now there's no way he's _not_ gonna speak. “For your information,” Samuel starts, voice already defensive and raised, before he even realizes what he's saying. “She's the best fucking thing that's ever happened to me, and I don't give a fuck if you have a problem with that. Nothing will stop me from seeing her, and least of all, you. You don't know shit about Carla, you know nothing about what she's like and you have no clue about our relationship!”

“Your _relationship_ ,” Nano laughs, disbelieving, cruel. “I don't know what she's like? I know exactly what she's like! She fucked up my entire life! It's because of her that Marina is dead, it's because of her that I had to flee the country and it's because of her that I have to call you with a fucking payphone once every two weeks! She's literally the _worst_ thing that ever happened to-”

“SHUT UP!” Samuel yells into the phone ravingly. He's literally burning; he has as urge to throw the phone against the wall. He has to punch a cushion to give his emotions an outlet. “We won't discuss this,” he manages sharply. “Give me mum on the phone.”

“WE WON'T DISCUSS THIS? I'M NOT GONNA FUCKING-”

“Let me talk to mum,” Samuel repeats. Now it's Nano who's yelling, and that's dangerous. “I swear to god, Nano, give her the phone.”

“Oh, what if I don't feel like it,” Nano spits out, venom of power swirling around his words. “What are you gonna do, huh?”

“Give me mum on the phone,” Samuel demands, trying for a hint of conciliatory while also not showing that Nano's scaring him. “It's not like she won't talk to me herself if you don't. And more calls means more danger.”

He hears a curse and a dull sound. Then something rustles on the other side. “Samu?”

“Mum,” he answers, every letter full of relief. His mum's voice is caring and calm and motherly, which starkly contrasts with Nano's sentiments. “What's he doing?”

She sighs, almost impossible to be heard. “Just pacing around and ranting, kinda.”

Silence. “What do _you_ think?” Samuel can't stop himself, even though he'd tried. “That I'm an idiot?”

His mum waits another moment before she answers: “No, I think that you're in love. And a bit too good to people. Even when they don't deserve it.”

He's about to say something slightly indignant, but she interrupts him before he can even get it out. “Including me. As one of the people you don't deserve. Is everything fine, Samu? Are you managing?”

It's a bit heart-wrenching, sure. His mum sounds so guilty, and let it be said, he's barely thought of her in the past weeks, his brain only occupied with Carla. “I'm fine,” he tries to sound the appropriate level of _content_. “I promise.”

The next sigh that reaches his ear is a lot louder. “We miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Samuel echoes, weight pushing on his chest. “But I promise, I'm fine.”

“I found a job. We might be able to send you some money to help you out.”

His heart jumps up at that. “Don't do that,” he blurts hurriedly, alarmed. “That's too dangerous, somebody could track it. And I swear I'm fine. They gave me a raise.” That's not completely true – they didn't give him a raise, but the company started giving the employees their tips from online transactions, because somebody sued. Samuel has no idea who would sue a company for some pizza delivery tips, because it's not like any of the pizza _deliverers_ could actually afford to go to court, time- and money-wise, but he's definitely not gonna complain. “I swear, I'm good.”

“Yeah,” Pilar sighs again. “It's just that – I should've stayed with you. You're the one who's still in high school.”

“But Nano's the one who needs you more,” Samuel argues, though he doubts it will have the desired effect of making his mother feel less shitty.

Her agreement sounds defeated. “I guess you're right. I just- Anyway. How's school?”

“Fine,” he lies. Frankly, the upcoming exam week (actually _longer_ than a week) and all the shifts he has to cover at the restaurant and the deliveries he has to make are everything but fine, but he figures voicing his troubles won't do anyone anything good.

“Good,” his mum breathes out. “Anything else?”

All their conversations are like this – a rueful glint, unspoken guilt, sadness. Samuel doesn't know why he still finds himself excited for the phone rings.

Except he does. It's his _family_.

“Your girlfriend,” his mum trails off, filling the silence. “Are you serious about her?”

He doesn't know whether it's a trick question, tries to detect Nano's voice in it somewhere. But it's late, he's exhausted, and it's not like he wants to pretend. “Yeah,” he answers simply.

She sighs again, but somehow different this time. There's a bit of hope. He'd say that's a misinterpretation, but he knows his mother. And he's listened to various types of sighs over the years. He has them perfected. “So, if you wanted to spend Christmas with her, that would be alright?” Pilar starts slow, but it soon turns into rambles that she's trying to get through quickly, because the heaviness sets down completely and she won't be able to finish. “Samu, we tried to get you a ticket to here for the holidays, but then the contact we had – something happened, and yes, we're safe-” she assures him before he can ask. “But we just can't get over there for Christmas, and we can't fly you, either. I really tried, but they were uncompromising – the people who are helping us, I mean.” There's a tear splashing the cord of the payphone, Samuel is sure. “I'm sorry. I-”

“It's fine, mum,” he breathes out, hopes his voice isn't shaking. He hates hearing his mum cry, like any other child does, but he probably hates it a little more because his mum is the only parent he's had since the age of five. “I promise. And I can spend it with Carla.”

“I'm sorry,” Pilar attempts to sound recovered. “I know I'm being a horrible mother to you,there's nothing more I want than to see you, but I just don't know how do that-”

“No, no, mum, it's fine,” he comforts her hurriedly, having heard her voice whimper again. “I promise, I'm not mad. I'm actually excited about spending Christmas with Carla,” it sort of feels like a lie but he doesn't know why. “I promise, I'm fine. Don't worry about me, okay?” When he gets a weak mumble in response, his words quicken. “I'm really okay. And I'm really sorry, but I'm tired, it's late and I have to go to school tomorrow.”

“Of course. I'm sorry,” Pilar says, dull and gray. “Sleep well, Samu. I love you.”

“Love you too,” he breathes out, doesn't wait for her to hang up, throws the phone backs into his socks and lands back flat on his bed.

There are tears in his eyes before he can feel them.

It's just so fucking shitty.

He clenches his jaw, grabs onto the rough, not-stretchy bedsheet. _Stop crying._

It doesn't help. His cheeks are wet after a few seconds.

He rolls onto his stomach, hits a pillow. _This is so fucking stupid_.

There's just one person he could call, one person that could maybe make him feel better, but that one person will certainly not feel better _herself_ if he starts talking about his family and the fact that he can't see them. Chances are, she'll just be reminded that she _could_ see her own.

“Shit,” Samuel curses, biting into his salty blanket.

¤

It's the next night he can't stop himself from calling her. It's Saturday, he worked a shift, then made some deliveries, then opened a textbook just to close it. Then stared at the shoddy, yellowed tiles in his shower.

All while feeling like the utmost shit.

It's two in the morning, Samuel's spent the last two hours staring at the ceiling and feeling like his will to live is being sucked from his soul by a dementor, and although he kind of hates himself for it, he reaches for the phone on his nightstand and presses the green icon.

“Hi,” Carla picks up almost immediately. “I was just about to call you.”

He breathes out. Okay, maybe there is a ray of light in the darkness. “Hi,” he answers, his voice coming out a level more joyful than he'd have predicted. “At two a.m., too?”

“It's just one here,” Carla corrects him softly. “But yeah. What's up with _you_?”

She makes it sound like them two have some sort of telepathic connection. Maybe they do – or maybe he's just a dumbass, trying to make himself feel better. “I missed your voice,” leaves him softly, unplanned. “It always makes me feel better.”

“Works the other way, too,” Carla hums, syrup and tranquility and gold. “You tell me what's wrong or I can start?”

“Let me start with a question,” he says, again, before he can think about it. He immediately curses at himself for bringing it up so tactlessly, but that's how it is. He's most likely way too tired to be speaking to anyone right now, but he's also way too upset _not_ to be speaking to _Carla_. “Can we spend Christmas together?”

There's a moment of silence, a little breath being expelled from her lungs before she answers: “Yeah. That's kind of what I was hoping for.”

“Great,” he says. It sounds entirely unenthusiastic, probably because he's exhausted and his brain hasn't caught up yet. Christmas with Carla – shouldn't that be like, the definition of joy?

“Yeah,” Carla lets out, softly, filled with understanding. “I know. It's great and it sucks.”

There's a small bubble of laughter that just manifests itself into a tired chuckle. “Yeah,” he agrees. “You've usually not this blunt.”

“What can I say, I'm exhausted from everything, too,” Carla confesses. “I just kinda – tune out everything, the good and the bad, and then sometimes it hits me. The _bad and the good_.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“Well,” Carla's smiling mellowly, he knows the exact way, “That's kind of what we're best at, no? I mean, not all the time, but-”

“Yeah.” Samuel agrees, words slurring, head falling to the side. “You know, I felt like absolute shit before but now that I heard you-”

“I know,” Carla says so tenderly, his heart aches.

“I just wish we could be together right now.” It's entirely too cold there – it feels like the only source of warmth is that stupid Chinese phone, and it's not because it's shit and the battery overheats.

“Me too,” she agrees softly, words heavy with sincerity. “Let's just pretend we are. How was your day?”

“That's not the best conversation starter you have,” Samuel teases, drawn-out, inarticulate. “But yeah, completely shitty. Exhausting. I got off from work and just wanted to get the four delieveries done quick and get home. Obviously, my bike had a flat tire. The food got cold. The next delievery was late, which means I get a penale for that. I don't know any Physics.”

Carla's laughter rings in his ears. “I'm sorry, honey,” he hears her tenderly smile. “I'd do something for you, but unfortunately I'm not there. I'd love to kiss the tragedy off your face, but you'll have to wait.”

“Thanks for making fun of my misery,” Sammuel grumbles lowly, but mostly just for the show. “And yeah, I _can't_ wait. How was _your_ shitty day, anyway?”

“More like a week,” Carla breathes out, trying to sound matter-of fact and unaffected and almost succeeding, if it weren't for the tiniest hint of blues in her sibilants. “You know, my parents relentlessly calling me with reproaches. My parents threatening to cut me off my trust fund. My parents threatening to cut _me_ out of their family.”

Samuel's desperately, fully awake within a split second. “Shit, Carla, I'm so sorry.” He's trying hard not to hit his head. “That's all because of me.”

There's a snort, condescending and entirely unhumourous. “No, Samuel. That's all because they're fucking judgmental selfish emotionless bastards.” Pause. “Besides, none of that is gonna happen. My parents care entirely too much about their appearance to cut me off and let me be poor. Post my _upsetting and provocative social-media photos_ from where I'd have to work at McDonald's or something.”

He huffs out mixed feelings. “Still, I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.” Carla seems to have caught her wave. “It's better if they stay away from me, anyway. And I'm not falling for their empty threats again.”

“What if they're not empty?” Samuel suggests, even though he doesn't want to.

She laughs dryly. “Then, at least you'll be able to pitch me a job from your amazing connections throughout the years.”

He sneers. “I'll get you the best one. At some place where they wear the hottest uniforms.”

“I don't wanna work at a strip club, Samuel.”

She pulls a genuine laugh out of him easily. “Oh trust me, that's the last thing _I_ want, too.”

“So you're being all possessive now, huh? What if I _wanted_ to work at a strip club?”

“You just said that you don't, so I don't think we're gonna have to deal with this problem.”

“Fair enough,” she agrees. “You know, you're actually not stupid.”

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

Silence, except his heart.

“Samuel?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we just stay on the phone until we fall asleep? Like, you don't even have to say anything. Just be there.”

“Yeah,” he breathes. It doesn't even come to his mind how expensive that phone bill will be, which he will most likely think of in the morning. “We definitely _can_ do that.”

Silence.

“I miss you,” he states what's obvious. Carla has her phone probably between her ear and her pillow, which means that he can even hear her breaths.

“Me too.”

Silence.

“We'll make ourselves a better Christmas than our families ever could,” she's quiet but firm. “Well, I don't know about _your_ family, but definitely than mine. At least after the age of nine.”

“I don't know about my capabilities, but we can try.”

Two beats skip. “I don't need any expensive presents,” Carla says, voice even. “I don't need any. I don't _want_ any, actually.”

“That's gonna be one shit of a Christmas celebration, then.”

“Honestly, my standards are pretty low. I'll be good if you don't take off in the middle of midnight mass to finish up some important work or get so drunk with your similarly desperate housewife friends that you're actually late for the Christmas dinner with your entire extended family sat around the table, so your husband gets pissed and the evening ends in shouts and shattered wine glasses.”

“That actually happened?”

“Yeah, but it was all that same year. Normally, it was just tension and fake joy.”

“I'm sorry.”

“As I said, you're pretty sure to make this year a lot better for me. So don't be _sorry_ , just don't _blow it_.”

He half-laughs. “That's an awful lot of pressure.”

“I'm demanding, that's why I get what I want.”

He trails off with a mumbled confirmation.

“Samuel?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm sorry that you can't be with your family. It's my fault.”

“It's not,” he argues innecessantly. “Besides, I don't think that with the current situation, Nano would only break wine-glasses if he saw me. Or like, beer bottles if we keep the scale. He'd probably smash something much bigger.”

“Let me guess. He-”

“I'm pretty sure you don't have to guess,” Samuel interrupts her. “Yes, he's not happy that we're together. No, I don't give a shit.”

Silence.

“We'll just be _children away from their families_ together on Christmas,” Carla closes it, her voice a mixture of nostalgia, remorse and he hopes the trace of excitement isn't just a product of his imagination.

“ _Lonely_ together.”

“You remember?”

“Honestly, it's not like I ever forget anything you say to me,” Samuel mumbles, eyelids growing heavy. Carla chuckles softly.

“I wish I could make fun of you and _then_ kiss you for that.”

“My last exam is on the Tuesday after this week,” he manages, which he finds impressive. All his thoughts are turning into mush. “You know, until then, it's not like I'd even have time for that.”

“I'm pretty sure you would always make time for that, even risk academic failure.”

“I'm a responsible student,” he argues weakly. “But like, yeah. Probably.”

“Go to sleep, _responsible student_ ,” Carla snickers, much like him starting to sound lethargic, albeit only slightly. “I'll see what I can do about boosting your motivation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i REALLY tried to tone it down with the fluff but idk how successful that was (ok i do know - it wasn't). legit this and the previous chapter could be great for a drinking game. "take a shot every time they say they love each other". and that's while i REALLY held myself back this time. (idk christmas is making me cheesy).  
> ANYWAY also the current plan is as you've probably noticed for this story to have 3 more chapters and because i know what it feels like being gaslighted by an ending (*cough* sophie - dw i still love you <3) i'm just telling you that now.  
> also that one quote along the lines of "he could stop breathing and wouldn't notice. it just wouldn't seem important" is a paraphrase of something i found on pinterest (during my moodboard hunts hh).  
> thanks for your comments and kudos and for reading. ily all! <3


	8. you are my home (my home for all seasons)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title is from _snowman_ by sia because this is the christmas chapter duh

Carla's exam timetable is utter bullshit. Some of her friends have such good schedules that their last exam is on Wednesday afternoon.

Carla's last exam is on _Friday_. At least it's in the morning, because otherwise, she'd probably be capable of marching into the administration office and choking someone until they change it under the threat of – _death_.

But on a Thursday evening, all she wishes is for the exam to be pushed even further. It's in Macroeconomics, and let it be said, Carla sucks at Macroeconomics. She also hates it with her whole heart.

A few tears of frustration and despair wet the printed out concepts she has not even come close to understanding. She's really not used to feeling so worthless and stupid on _top_ of exhausted.

She presses her temples, puts her hair up into a ponytail, blinks and goes to make herself yet another coffee. She really wants to check her phone, even though she'd instructed Samuel to _scold her in the most cruel way_ if he finds her online.

Fortunately, her phone's back in the drawer of her nightstand, _and_ on airplane mode, and she's in the kitchen. All of these studytuber videos she's kind of become addicted to do surprisingly had a few good tricks that work in practice.

She sips her coffee, looks at the clock – 9.30 pm – and prepares herself for a long night and a too-short morning, most likely.

But it's fine. All she has to do is get through this one last obstacle, which is more of a sfaety precaution anyway, and then everything will be fine.

A small smile curves her mouth. Yeah, just this one last thing.

But first, the UK's unemployment policy. (Spoiler alert – it sucks.)

¤

Here's the thing: Carla feels so clueless in the subject that she has almost zero idea whether she'd done well ( _as_ well _as possible_ ) or not in the exam. It's a bit nerveracking, but maybe it's for the best.

It'll be eaiser for her to tune out _school_ entirely.

The airport is obviously packed. She also has a much bigger amount of bags than last time. Maneuvering to luggage check-in shows to be difficult. The line is endless, Carla nervously taps her foot and kind of snaps at a woman who tried to cut and literally elbowed her with that.

“I'm in a hurry, I have a flight to catch!” she returns aggravatedly.

“Don't we all?” Carla remarks ironically, rolling her eyes just the tiniest hint. She might be mean, but she's also not about to miss her own flight to see Samuel.

_Samuel._

She's already imagining his face once he sees her, unannounced, waiting for him after his last period. She's managed to get him to send her his timetable ( _let me see so we can compare our misery_ ), and she knows it's over at four. Pretty much the exact time she can make it. If this line started to fucking _move_.

Okay, maybe she's gone just the tiniest bit overboard with her aggression. She has over fifty minutes to spare in the duty-free shops, which then again, is definitely time (and money) well-spent. Carla was right about the trust fund – her cards are absolutely fine, and though there's radio silence from her parents, there aren't any warning signs, either.

Carla knows that they care more about what they look like than _her_ , which is the sole reason they have left her the money (she might have said something about the wineries, Yeray, and a little blackmailing threat during their last conversation. Nevertheless, she's safe).

She breathes out shakily, realizing she's clenching the paper bags way-too tightly. She forces her fingers to relax and un-cramp – she won't spend today thinking about her parents, and she definitely won't spend it angry.

¤

She's usually good at predicting the future, but she was wrong about one thing – the person who's supposed to make her _not angry_ is doing the exact opposite.

It all started when Carla hailed herself an overpriced taxi from the airport because she was in a bit of a time crunch. Then told the driver to wait with her luggage in the car, which was probably entirely too naïve but whatever, he's still there, walked over to Las Encinas' main gate and somehow expected that Samuel would walk out within two seconds with a huge smile on his face.

No. It's been five minutes, Carla's freezing (blame her for wanting to look cute for this reunion with half her former classmates and wearing a skirt), Samuel's nowhere to be seen in the sea of blue blazers, and she's starting to feel uncomfortable, sticking like a sore thumb among all the uniformed students flowing out.

She turns around to check on her cab. Thank god, still there. Unfairly, her trust in the drivers' morality deteriorates every second she's not in the car with her two suitcases.

Just when she bites her lip and feels like she'll go back and seize her bags, no matter the fact she'll look even more stupid standing in front of the school looking like she's _moving_ there, she catches a gesture, a spark, in the herd of blended movements.

A soft smile immediately enters her face, but it doesn't stay for long. Samuel hasn't noticed her, and the reason for that is wrapped around his shoulder. Rebeka's entirely too touchy practically _hugging_ him like that, gesticulating wildly and looking straight into his eyes. The reason for his ringing laughter and the recepient of his soft gaze is also – not Carla.

She won't say the word that comes to her mind to describe the- _Rebeka_.

It's Guzmán, on the other side of Samuel, who locks eyes with her, then immediately hits him in the shoulder and announces so loud that even she hears it over the chatter. “Dude, isn't that your girlfriend?”

Samuel's gaze ticks over two people before it lands on her. The definition of _shock_ is drawn on his face, and Carla can't help but wonder whether that shock, not _pleasant surprise_ , but shock, has something to do with the girl whose arm's behind his neck.

“Holy shit,” she hears someone say. _Someone._ Not a fucking boyfriend-touching cunt, but _someone_. “She's even hotter than I remember.”

She won't lie and say that doesn't make her a bit smug, but it definitely can't erase the annoyance.

A much better medium for that is Samuel finally snapping out from staring at her with his mouth open, taking six long, rushed, half-running steps (as possible it is with all the students blocking his way), lifting her up in his arms and spinning her around.

She giggles into his shoulder. Maybe she can't be annoyed with his arms around her, his smell in her nostrils, his curls brushing her cheek.

“What are you, blind?”

Apparently, she _can_.

“Blinded by his _loove_ , that would be,” Guzmán sing-songs, reaching them. “Hi, Carla. I know that _I'm_ not the reason you came here, but I'm happy to see you.”

“Me too,” she answers and wiggles out of Samuel's embrace – he lets her very reluctlantly – so that she can hug Guzmán. It's honestly so comforting that he's instantly this nice to her. “Hi.”

“Hey, blondie. I'm glad to see you too.”

Well, there goes her good mood. The swings are certifiably insane, but Carla isn't delving into that. “Hi,” she greets Rebeka curtly, nods her head. Definitely doesn't go in for a hug. “Where's Ander?”

“He's good, he just doesn't have to take P.E.,” Samuel explains, noting the subtle worry in her voice immediately. “Which, yeah, I know it's bad to envy someone who had to do chemo, but I'm jealous. Last period on a Friday, and they won't even cancel it during exam week. But anyways-” he clears his throat awkwardly, obviously in response to Guzmán's incredulous glance and subtle kick, but Carla's already gotten used to his rambling. “What are you doing here? I thought that you'd come next weekend. Right before Christmas.”

“Jesus Christ, Samu, you're a total idiot,” Rebeka chimes in, and the sound of her voice makes Carla tense up again. “She's here early, your hot girlfriend you've somehow managed to score, and all you say is that she's here too early and talk to her about P.E.?”

She has a point. A good point, definitely. Carla narrows her eyes at her and throws her arm around Samuel's shoulder. “It's a good question,” she almost hisses at Rebeka. “I wasn't supposed to come. And the person making those timetables was a total imbecile.”

Just like her idiotic boyfriend, but if there's one person she's annoyed with more than him at this exact moment, it's _Rebeka_ , so she picks her side.

Guzmán shakes his head. “Well, I'm glad that Samuel's found someone in this world who isn't immediately repelled by his tragic social skills,” he says too light-heartedly for the mood Carla's in. “So, Samu, I assume you're not going out with us tonight, no?”

Going out with _them_. Just one look at Rebeka makes Carla's mind go absolutely insane. Her at a bar in one of her infamously distasteful, yet provocative outfits. With _Samuel_.

Who grins apologetically at Guzmán. “Sorry, man, something better came up,” he says, then messes with Carla's hair – probably meant to be loving, but all it does is annoy her. It's not like it's not already a mess, and he's making it worse.

“Yeah,” Guzmán gives then a knowing nod. “ _Much_ better. Well,” he half-turns around, Rebeka trailing behind him. “See you once you're done with your _mingling_!”

“Sorry,” Samuel apologizes to her instantly, cheeks flushed. “I'm sorry about him. Shit, Carla, I can't believe you're here.”

“Oh, can't you,” she nods dryly, tasting sand on her tongue. She's probably being irrational, but her thinking is kind of clouded. With _rage_. “Guess I'm gonna have to be a bit more flashy to make sure you don't miss my presence.”

Samuel's brows furrow in confusion as she wordlessly takes his hand and leads him to the cab. “Are you mad?”

Carla scoffs, climbing into the back seat. “Why would I be?” she asks. What she really wants to say is: _Should_ I be?

“That's what I don't know,” Samuel mumbles, holding her hand with the both of his, drawing little circles with his thumb. She wants to jerk it away, but she doesn't.

Maybe she's being a _little_ irrational. It's just that when she saw him with Rebeka, all the memories from months ago came back attacking: how Rebeka would kiss him, not her. How Rebeka would hear that he loves her, not her. How Rebeka would dance with him, not her.

How Rebeka had _him_. Not Carla. Even though he was what she'd wanted the most. Maybe the _only_ thing she wanted.

“Nothing,” Carla snaps. “Just forget about it, Samuel.”

She knows exactly where the little confused wrinkles have appeared on his face, despite the fact that she's not looking at him. “If you're not mad, then why are you acting like this?” he asks. His voice is so patient, so soft, so calm. It's driving her insane. “Like, I don't even know what I could've done since you've been here for like five minutes, and I really didn't have enough time to commit a punishable offence.”

It's meant to draw out a laugh, but it's nowhere close to being effective. All it does is force her to mute a sarcastic snort and make her want to say a further snappy remark.

“Looks like she's jealous to me,” suddenly reaches them from the front seat.

Carla's eyebrow springs up a mile high. “I don't remember paying for your input into private conversations,” she barks, much too quick of a response to be authoritative. Instead, she just sounds childish. “I'm paying you for driving.”

“ _Jealous?_ ” echoes too close to her. She wants to throw that fucking nosy taxi-driver out of his own car. “You're jealous?”

Samuel forces her to look at him, fingers lightly turning her chin. “Well,” she admits, small and insecure and ashamed and also really fucking mad but that doesn't show. “Maybe a little.”

She drops her gaze and concludes that the driver can say goodbye to his tip, though she'd made him wait for like ten minutes.

“You're _adorable_ ,” she hears an amused voice while hyper-focusing on her nails.

The eye-contact is reinstated within a split second. “I'm definitely _not_ that, thank you very much,” Carla, again, sounds like a five-year old. _Fuck_ her. Is she literally being _this_ stupid?

“You definitely _are_ ,” Samuel argues, eyes warm, voice just a tad smug but mostly adoring, and she suddenly can't remember what she was so mad about. “You're more adorable than like, kittens and puppies combined.”

She swears she hears a stifled chuckle from the front seat, but Samuel's kissing her and she can't tell that pathetic nosy driver off.

Instead, she kind of sets on making him uncomfortable as her revenge. It serves as a _double_ revenge, because the soft gasp she makes, which pulls an unsuccessfully contained moan from Samuel, clearly also makes her boyfriend flush.

She bites her lip mischeviously, lets him entwine their fingers together, and in the end, _does_ tip the driver.

The spirit of generosity is in the air.

¤

Despite Samuel being entirely too busy with exams, he makes enough time for her (in all aspects) during the weekend. As an excuse for distracting him, she quizzes him using his notes, from Bio and French. She's completely sure that he'll be fine in his exams on Monday and Tuesday.

“Won't you be bored here while I'm at school?” he asks her, idly tracing her spine. The apartment is nicely, cozily warm. When she first came in, it was literally like stepping on Antarctic soil, but he must have raised the thermostat because now she's naked in his bed, only half-covered by a blanket, and doesn't feel even a bit cold.

(Which might also have to do with something other than the thermostat.)

“I'll definitely be fine,” she answers. “You know, I'm pretty sure I can occupy myself for a few hours without you.” He chuckles. “Christmas shopping, maybe.”

He kind of stiffens, Carla has to lovingly roll her eyes and then tip her head back and pout, giving his nose a kiss. “Relax. I'm not gonna buy you a yacht. And you don't have to get me anything.”

He breathes out, air full of hesitance. Doesn't object though, just nods.

“Carla-” _Oh._ Nevermind. “Would you mind helping me get Ander something for Secret Santa?”

Well, that was something different from what she'd expected, but also entirely way less stressful, so she turns around to face him and nods, wearing a mischevious smirk. “Sure. But isn't that cheating?”

“No, I'll just say that since we already drew the names and I don't want you to feel excluded, we're a team,” Samuel shrugs casually, his gaze on her provoking something entirely weird to take place in her stomach. “Which is all true, plus Ander will get something better than what I got him.”

“Which is?”

“Don't laugh, okay,” he breaks eye-contact and shuffles around hastily. He reaches for something under his bed; the unmistakable crumpling of a paper bag. “Well, it's not like you're _not_ gonna laugh anyways. But like, I really had no idea what to get him. And what do I know about Ander? He doesn't look it, but he's gay.”

Carla blinks. Once, twice. Then, she explodes. “Jesus Christ, Samuel,” she manages after a solid minute of hysteria and cramps. He's ducking his head into his pillow, shyly, but she can't help with that. “You _cannot_ give him that.”

“Well,” Samuel throws the t-shirt, which is entirely too big for Ander, not that that's the primary problem, onto the ground. The primary problem lies in the huge, block letters, stating: _I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is._ “That's why I need your help.”

“I don't know if I can manage that,” Carla's still shaking in laughter as she watches Samuel's gaze embarrassingly flicker over all corners of the room, until they reach the black garment on the ground. “What were you thinking?”

“I don't know, I just thought it was so oddly specific that it would- I don't know,” he settles on, shaking his head desperately under Carla's disbelieving look. “Just – help me.”

“I will. I like Ander, I don't want him to go through this.”

¤

Carla kind of understands Samuel's despair (still not approving of his solution) after she spends her entire Monday morning shopping for Ander and has nothing.

What she _does_ have are two presents for Samuel, which she's entirely sure he'd scold her for. Even more than for making fun of him and then finding nothing on her own.

She settles on an entirely not _funny_ hoodie for Ander, which is a bit lame, but she likes it. It's pretty expensive too, which she hopes the people in the room able to tell won't bring attention to.

She's about to call it a day, sufficiently satisfied with her shopping success, but then she catches sight of an actually cute Christmas sweater with a reindeer.

Its eyes kinda look like Samuel's.

The reindeer look-alike looks at her like she's crazy when she unlocks his apartment (he gave her a spare key) three hours later, with so many bags that she seriously thought she was gonna faint while going up the stairs.

“Um. Carla?”

“Just help me,” she demands, ignoring the huge red question marks he's shooting out. “I just – thought we should get into the Christmas spirit.”

“Into the Christmas spirit, or the Christmas _insanity_?” he asks, pulling out the matching Christmas pajamas (hey, he should not be complaining, the lingerie set she got is _very_ hot and not creepy _miss Santa_ at all, just red with white fluffy hemming). “Are you aware that we don't live in a holiday-themed rom-com?”

“You should love the rom-com theme,” she snickers. “And hey,” she defends herself after he raises an eyebrow at the next box she got. “A pre-baked gingerbread house, and it was on _sale_. It's perfect for you, you can just put the candies on top and stay out of the kitchen.”

“Jeez, Carla,” he finally stops examining the contents of her bags and turns to her. “This is like, the last thing I would've thought you'd do.”

“Well, I'm full of surprises,” she smirks nonchalantly (she's full of surprises for herself, mind her), then steps over one of the home-goods store bag filled with completely unnecessary mugs with elf-ears and a way too big Bethlehem installation to be pushed out of cardboard. “Tell me you like it,” she pouts.

Samuel shakes his head, brushes her cheek with his thumb and kisses her. She figures that's an answer on its own.

(They bring the cookies they actually bake to the group's Christmas party on Thursday. After they get made fun of ( _cringey couple_ , Guzmán calls them), they're gone quickly.

Ander loves the hoodie almost as much as Omar loves the shirt and forces Ander to put it on.

“Hey, it's not my fault Samu correctly picked up on the fact that you're totally slaughtering the gays' good, fashionable repuation.”)

¤

Carla's pretty sure that neither of them have had this intense of a Christmas experience.

Samuel told her, shrugging, that Christmas with his family used to be _nice_ , and while he usually got the one appropriately-priced present he'd learned to ask for, it was never a big deal, really. They also didn't go to mass and their Christmas dinner was usually just chicken.

Carla's had an abundance of presents, traditional dinners and midnight masses, but thinking about all of it doesn't fill her with joy. Conversely, it kind of makes her bloodstream freeze.

So, the pure enjoyment she feels when they stupidly sing around his apartment while baking their third batch of the gingerbread cookies after a failed attempt to make nougat is completely unheard of.

“I never knew Christmas could be so exhausting,” Samuel collapses next to her on the couch. There are colorful lights in his window, and yes, they are over-the-top in the otherwise completely blackened out street, but that doesn't bother Carla in the slightest.

She giggles. “If this is exhausting, you'd die at my house.”

“Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate.”

Carla feels him skimming her features like he's looking for some sort of sadness to be hidden under there. She tries to look for it herself, but she doesn't really find any.

She reaches for his hand, squeezes and lets her head fall on his chest. “What are we even gonna eat tomorrow?” She doubts it'll be turkey stuffed with truffles. Let alone the fact that she hates truffles and always dreaded that meal.

“I looked at it. I could make a roast, I don't know,” she feels Samuel's breath on her hairline. “And we could buy some stuff for a cheese board or something.”

“Sure,” Carla mumbles. Maybe he does have a point about that amount of baking and decorating and making a collapsing gingerbread house being tiring. “Yeah.”

Samuel tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear and whispers: “Let's get you to bed.”

¤

She wakes up late. She rarely wakes up late, because she rarely _can_ wake up late, but the sun is already completely up and it's actually the rays that got her up.

She sneezes from the bright light. Everyone always made fun of her for it. (It's a real thing. It's called the photic sneeze reflex and allegedly, twenty percent of people should have it, but Carla very much doubts that from experience.)

Samuel, whom she accidentally hits in her three-time bending-over fit, cracks an eye open and suddenly, he's sitting up and bringing his hand in front of his mouth.

_Oh._

She kind of smiles, kind of giggles and kind of sympathetically nods at him all at once when he's recovered, eyes not narrowed anymore.

“Guess we're really meant for each other,” Carla jokes, but it comes out entirely too serious.

Samuel clears his throat and dumbly stares at her, a pillow crease on his cheek. “Huh?”

“Sneezing from the sun?” Carla raises her eyebrow.

“Isn't that normal?”

“Yeah, apparently not,” she enlightens him. “I had friends tell me it was autosuggestion.”

It's when he finally chuckles. “Guess we are, then,” he agrees softly, pulls her into his arms. “Good morning.”

“I doubt it's the morning. It's definitely past nine,” Carla argues weakly. “We should get up before they close the shops early. We need to buy the food.”

She's not being all that serious, but Samuel almost springs up at the mention. “Fuck, you're right! Let's go!”

She watches him amusedly from a pillow nest as he paces around the room, looking for some clothes, probably. “You could just get a new pair of pants, you know.”

“You could just get _any_ pair of pants and get out of bed,” he suggests, picking up denim from the floor. “Come on, there are surely already huge queues everywhere.”

She reluctantly hauls herself from the bed, not excited about leaving the island of warmth, but figures she should because he looks stressed. They're brushing their teeth in front of his tiny mirror (he has to be halfway in the shower for them to be able to fit into the bathroom) and she'd just finished and is reaching for her eyeliner when he interrupts her, almost disgruntled: “What are you doing, Carla? We don't have time for this!”

“I doubt all the pork cuts are gonna grow legs and run out of the supermarket,” she chuckles, but he doesn't relax at all. “Just a bit of mascara, jeez.”

“Come on, hurry!”

When they get to Lidl, there are, indeed, still enough pre-packaged meat cuts on little plastic trays. There's definitely enough _food,_ but it is also true that there are entirely too many people, and Carla bumps into two before Samuel tells her that he'll manage the trolley.

So she goes around and throws things in it, some of them because he has them on his list, and some of them because they look kind of exciting. They also get a bottle of cava, even though Carla can tell from a mere look that this will _not_ be cava, but _c'est la vie_. It's on sale.

She doesn't let him pay simply because she's there quicker, he's busy packing their things into a linen bag, and when he looks up and realizes, she'd already put her card back. He tries to bring it up on the way home, which is already unpleasant enough because while Carla's only carrying one bag that isn't even full, the strap's still sharply cutting into her palm.

And when Samuel starts with his usual _paying_ _bullshit_ , it's not the topic that forces her to a halt immediately, wide-eyed and a gasp escaping her throat.

“Samuel,” she interrupts him urgently. “We forgot the tree!”

“What?”

“The Christmas tree,” Carla clarifies, though realization is already dawning on his face before she says it.

There's a beat of silence. Then he coughs. Then he looks at her.

Then she starts laughing first.

“Jesus,” he manages to recompose himself earlier than her, because she's still kinda chuckling. “Well, there goes the perfection we thought we achieved.”

“It's fine. Maybe they'll be cheaper this late or something,” Carla says, her claim entirely unsupported by evidence. “Let's just drop this off at home and get one.”

¤

Tree shopping turns out to be fine. There's a selling spot just down the square from where Samuel lives, there's a variety of nice trees, a number of people in the same position as them (though she doubts they actually _forgot_ ), there's a nice guy to assure tham that pine is the best because its needles don't sting and offer them a car delivery service.

“No, we live just two minutes away,” Samuel says automatically the same moment she opens her mouth to confirm. “Thanks.”

Carla offers him a flat look once the guy turns around to serve the next customer. “Are you serious?”

“Nano's been making this walk on his own since he was twelve,” Samuel shrugs. “Until I helped him. It's fine, I can carry it.”

Well, there's also no way Carla's just gonna let him carry this unmistakably _stingy_ , extremely heavy chunk of _wood_ on his own and walk next to him like some sort of spoiled princess. She hugs the constricted tree around the trunk with bent-up branches so it starts to sink into _horizontal;_ then ignores _Samuel's_ flat look as he turns his head around and sees her determined to participate.

“Okay, let's switch. It'll be easier if you're in the front,” he says, amusement poorly concealed, but Carla's entirely sure that if she drops this tree or just tries to shift her arms from that pinching hug, she'll never be able to pick up this evil symbol of joy again (she doesn't even have gloves on, and her palms hurt).

“Let's just go,” she half-grunts, and Samuel fortunately interprets her impatient expression correctly and starts moving.

It goes fairly well. They're past half the journey in no time, and Carla almost thinks that this _is_ pretty easy, though a bit strenuous, and it'll be fine.

How wrong she is she realizes when Samuel tries to look for his house keys while still holding up the tree.

It obviously doesn't work well when he's only carrying it with one hand, though he attempts to lean the tree on his body and kind of support its weight with his thigh and stomach, but oh _well_. Carla feels the thing slip from her fingers and is almost relieved when it's on the ground.

“Well,” Samuel sighs, gets out his keys, unlocks the door. “Guess it's better if we just think about how we'll walk up the stairs. Maybe it'd be better if I-”

“No, you're not doing it on your own,” Carla protests indignantly, arms already reaching under the trunk. “Come on, up.”

“Carla, it's not gonna fi-” he tries to protest, but he probably catches the strain in her face. He wordlessly picks up the tree and holds the door open with his foot as he makes his way in. There's no need for that once the tree's in – Carla actually has to squeeze a little just to get through the door with it.

Okay, well, maybe he had a point when he told her it'd be better if he did it alone. The tree is humongous, so now it's extremely long. They're in a narrow hallway leading to even narrower flights of stairs, and the turning space is minimal.

Carla already feels her hands burning red.

“Okay, let's just – swerve it,” Samuel says doubtfully from the front and starts a miniature curve.

It takes exactly five seconds until Carla's pressed to the wall with pine needles and bark in her mouth.

The growl is Christmas-scented but not exactly full of joy. Samuel lenghtens his neck in an attempt to see over the encompassing green. “Sorry,” he shouts apologetically. “Let's just-”

Carla's spitting out green and _foresty_ , and doesn't think that half-hearted apology should really be enough, but it's not like she has much time before she's almost in that same position, just five centimetres further up the hallway. “Samue-”

“Sorry! You have to go to the other side!”

“I can't go the fucking other side!” Carla now screams, too, and it's not entirely because of the sound-blocking tree. “How the fuck should I do that, climb under the tree while holding it up overhead?”

“I don't know! Put it down and step over it, maybe!”

She does exactly that, though it's not as easy as he'd made it sound. At least she can now see him better as they're on the same side of the barricade – she uses it to shoot him an annoyed look. “Okay, let's go,” she groans as she picks up the tree again. Her entire arms are hurting, and with them her chest.

“Okay, let's just gently tur-” Samuel doesn't get to finish his sentence as the edge of the handrail is pushed into his back. He lets out a growl and the tree shakes, but doesn't land.

“Sorry,” Carla's entirely sure she just sounds malicious. “Let's just try again.”

Trying again doesn't work. It only takes one more attempt for Samuel to decide that this method isn't gonna cut it, and they ultimately manage to get the tree back to a horizontal position, with grumbles and a few curses, and get Samuel to completely hug it and start conquering the steps with the tree in front of him.

“Do you want me to navigate?” Carla proposes uselessly, because now she feels bad again just standing around. She follows Samuel in his walk up, but when he dangerously stumbles and almost tips back, she moves to the complete end of the staircase and walks it up pretty much sliding up the wall with her back.

Surprisingly, nobody dies. They make it to the apartment minutes later, Carla proving her importance when she unlocks it for him (after running down to usher the keys they'd forgotten in the house-door) and Samuel can stumble in with the tree and lean it against the inside of his apartment door.

“Fucking hell,” he gets out when he's finished splashing water on his face. “Can we just leave this thing here? I swear to god, I can't move it a centimeter more.”

“Sure, it's real photogenic next to the shoes,” Carla remarks. He just gives her a look, slips into the little storage room next to the toilet, emerges a minute later with a tree-stand, voicelessly puts it on the ground in two-thirds of the living room and starts the transfer process.

Carla doesn't know whether he has any ornaments, so she decides to investigate in the mess that is the little storage space. There's a high shelf, and there's also a lot of things on the ground, but after some digging and some concerning sounds here and there, she finds a box and manages to open it just enough to see a sparkly red ball.

When she shuffles around enough things to seize the box and nothing feels too unstable to fall at least for the next few hours or so, she dicovers Samuel already finishing the arrangement of the tree. It looks – nice, just like a tree should look, and she gives him a kiss on the cheek and rubs his back a little, and scrunches her nose because he's drenched in sweat.

“You should take a shower,” she tells him, setting the lid of the box on the coffee table. “I'll start with the decorating.”

He gives her a _dead_ glance and walks off to the bathroom. Carla picks out the balls and stars and angels, most plastic and with the glitter already falling off a little. The ornaments they had at home were actual glass with a real golden coating – she remembers when she broke one at seven years old and then cried in shame. Nobody really told her off, but her mother gave her _that_ face, and the shards on the floor of something so beautiful tipped her over.

This tree isn't perfect and decorated by maids and doesn't have a huge comet at the top. Carla tries hard to make it balanced and aesthetically pleasing, but it takes her only about five minutes to give up, and start placing the decor almost randomly. She smiles gently at the ornament with a photo of little Samuel and Nano grinning into the camera, brushes her thumb over a little dent in the plastic gently, and picks a nice branch for it.

She's just untangling the Christmas lights when Samuel steps into the room, significantly more cheery than after the tree escapade and wearing a fresh pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. “You're almost done,” he states the obvious, then walks over to Carla and the tree to inspect it. “It looks nice,” he kisses her cheek.

“It does, right?” Carla turns, closes her eyes as he contently hums with his thumb brushing her cheek, tips her chin up and waits for him to join her lips. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” he echoes, smiley, gentle. His eyes dart over the decor one last time. “Can you finsih this on your own?” he trails off, fingers stroking hers. “I mean, it's getting late, and I haven't even started with the cooking.”

Carla's not entirely sure if she wants him _to_ start with the cooking without any supervision, but nods her head nevertheless. “Sure.”

She joins him just twenty minutes later, puts her hair up and asks what they're making, though she went to the supermarket with him. He shows her the exact recipe on his phone though, scrolling with his elbow because his hands are dirty. Carla chuckles and delves into arranging the appetizers, because he looks sufficiently confident about the lamb roast (he let her pick, and since she knew she was gonna pay, she decided they didn't need to spare and buy pork).

It _is_ good. Great, actually. It's certainly the first Christmas dinner she's eaten on the couch next to someone who's wearing sweatpants, but they were extremely hungry, not having eaten anything all day, and it's getting late. There are flutes of cava (not as bad as she'd expected) on the coffee table, at least. Carla ducks her head into Samuel's shoulder, watches the Christmas tree in front of them twinkle with yellow and green and blue lights (all of the red are broken), and feels peace take over every cell of her body.

“Merry Christmas,” she tips her head back, looks at Samuel's face. He has a bit of the roast juices on the corner of his mouth. She fights the urge to lick them off.

He sets the plate down into his lap, focuses entirely on her, eyes sparklier than the fairy lights, expression more innocent than the baby Jesus in the nativity scene that's spread across the windowsill. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Carla answers quietly, the day dawning on her. She reaches up to play with his soft curls falling on his forehead. “You know, this might be the best Christmas I've had in my life. And I'm being serious.”

“I'm glad I managed that,” Samuel says softly, looking so precious with his rosy cheeks and gold-tinted gaze that she wants to make a petition to have him as the ultimate symbol of Christmas, not a screaming baby. “ _We_ managed that.” He plays with the hem of her sweater absently. “That we managed to get here.”

“I know,” Carla sighs dreamily. It's not the cava nor the holy connotations of the day making everything into a beautiful, almost heavenly daze. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i have a ton of things to say.   
> 1\. this isn't like the complete end of their christmas (i wanted to have some in samuel's pov as well plus this is already too long) but you're getting the rest of christmas _after_ christmas i'm sorry i'm not making that.   
> 2\. the tree scene was completely inspired by the "pivot" scene from friends.  
> 3\. this is progressivelly getting more fluffy and with that more unrealistic but it is what it is.  
> 4\. i want to wish everyone a merry christmas if you celebrate and to enjoy the holidays if you don't. i hope none of your plans were (too) hindered by corona and even if they were that you found a good alternative. be with your family, eat a shit ton of christmas cookies and relax because we all deserve it after this complete shitshow of a year we had to live through <3  
> thank you for all of your support, kudos comments the standard ily all and it means a lot <3


	9. baby came home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back from the dead :))) (no, i just had a great, relaxing, completely unproductive christmas break with my family, 10/10 would recommend). and now i'm back here, with now-belated christmas stuff, but i hope you like it anyway.

Samuel's never been to midnight mass on Christmas. The fact that Carla's gone every time doesn't surprise him one bit, and he's not one to want to break the only holiday tradition she has left.

But before they embark on a journey to the catherdal where he's probably destined to die from a severe case of out-of-placeness provoked anxiety, he won't just forget the one tradition that _he_ has left.

“What are you doing?”

Carla's teeth are chatterring on the balcony he's led her to. Samuel fights with trying to light the match, not drop his present and not set it on fire. It's a bit of a challenge.

“Quick. Draw your wish with it,” he hands her the lit up sparkler. Carla's nose is scrunched and gaze an unspoken question. “Draw what you want into the air with it, before it's out,” Samuel rushes, finally having lit up his own sparkler. “See, if I wanted a car, I'd draw a wheel and-”

“That's a bad car,” Carla criticizes his vanishing golden outline.

“Because I don't want a car,” he rushes, her inability to cooperate driving him just a little crazy. “Draw your wish.”

Carla makes three vague swings with the sparkler in the air before it's fizzled out. “Why wouldn't you want a car? That'd be useful.”

Samuel clicks his lips disapprovingly, watching the last spark being put out by the wind. “You didn't even draw anything.”

“I did. Why wouldn't you want a car?”

“Because I want something else.”

“Don't tell me it's because it's _me_ what you want,” Carla rolls her eyes, but he hears a poorly hidden smile.

“No, it's because a car wouldn't fit into that package you inconspicuously hid in the bedroom, and you're supposed to wish for what you could actually get,” he corrects her cheekily and leans to kiss _her_ cheek.

“You didn't say that,” Carla snickers. “ _Peace of mind_ surely doesn't fit into your gift either.”

“Well, my mum did this with us to ensure that if we didn't get what we wanted on Christmas, we'd get it from the Kings,” Samuel reveals the secret motive, grinning. “Now come on. Let's just give each other the presents before we miss your amazing spiritual awakening.”

Carla huffs lowly, but instead of presenting him what's creating the bulge in the pocket of his hoodie that she's wearing, she gives him an encouaraging nod and walks back inside in the direction of the bedroom. “Let me just get my presents, then.”

It's time for Samuel's palms to sweat increasingly. “Carla?” he calls hesitantly, treading on the spot, like getting into the bedroom could change something for the worse. “You know I said not to get me anything big, right?”

“Yeah,” Carla answers plainly, emerging in the doorframe with a mountain of four huge packages. “I know.”

“Do you?”

She gives him a pointed look. “I got ten times this every Christmas. And trust me, it's mostly like me buying myself presents.” Samuel's face is still scrunched, so she sets down her little tower of Pisa on the floor and approaches him, pouting into a kiss. He returns it hesitantly. “Please, don't be mad.”

“'Kay,” he says softly, detecting the insecurity in her voice and hoping he's managed to hide his own. He's not _mad_. He's embarrassed, because all he has for Carla is a single unimpressive present. Of course she's used to getting much more on Christmas, and his little stupid cheesy drawing won't make up for the fact that it's his fault she's not getting a whole winter collection or a private plane.

“Just open it,” Carla's on the floor, leaning on the biggest box. “Come on, hurry, and I promise it's nothing big.”

Reluctantly, he starts to tear the wrapping paper – it's not exactly neat, the creases are anything but controlled, but that actually makes him feel better – to find a carton box with a pot on it.

“I thought it'd be nice if all the stuff we eat didn't taste like scraps of aluminium and teflon,” Carla lifts her shoulder and flashes him a smile. “Not too bad, huh?”

He finds himself gleaming back. Actually, yes. Not too bad at all.

He can deal with two pots and a pan, even though the brand does look kind of fancy. He pulls her in and murmurs, “Thank you.”

“You're welcome. As I said, it's more of a present for me than you.”

The second package contains bedding, which he can also deal with, and after he opens the third one and finds a set of wine glasses (Carla, with a raised eyebrow, explains that she likes when at least two people can have a matching one, which is a luxury unheard of in Samuel's apartment. Half the kitchenware is in Morocco), he finds himself, though he'd never admit it, slightly disappointed at the sheer practicality of her gifts.

He reprimands himself for the thought, because literally all Carla did was follow his orders to perfection (nothing fancy, nothing useless, and a special emphasis on _no suits_ after he'd seen her eye one during their walk in the city).

“Okay, open this one next,” Carla, uncharacteristically giddily, hands him the penultimate package. It's a soft one, so he tears into it without much excitement. His preferences haven't really changed since he was nine and had to act extremely pleased with a ten-pack of socks.

Carla giggles when he shoots her a look of sheer confusion. In his hands, half-covered by wrapping paper, lies, without a doubt, a t-shirt with a graphic print.

“So?” Carla prompts him, smile from ear to ear.

“His queen,” he reads, eyebrow raised, head tilted.

“Oops, my bad, mine's on the top,” Carla quickly discards of the small-looking t-shirt and throws it on her crossed legs. “ _That's_ yours. It says _king_.”

 _Indeed_ , Samuel thinks. Not that that explains much.

“What? I thought you would love these, considering your taste in gifts,” Carla nudges him with her elbow, rolling her eyes distinctly at his frozen non-reaction. “And your ego could love that t-”

Her mocking tone dies in a squeal as Samuel (carefully) pushes her down on the wooden floor and braces her in his arms. “My ego, huh?” He runs his hand down her side under the hoodie, but Carla's already giggling anyway. This helps a lot, though. “And Omar loved it, thank you very much-”

“Well then I'm sure you must love this too, _king_ ,” Carla manages to snort out inbetween spasms as he tickles her with no mercy. Her hair's messily scattered across the floor and she's absolutely flushed. “Just to make it clear, I'm never wearing this outsi-”

Samuel slants her lips over hers. “You're so dumb,” he murmurs when Carla's hand pulls him closer by his locks. “Seriously, the way _you_ say that I'm a dor-”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

¤

It's Samuel who has, five minutes into the make out session, the self control to sit up, give his blood-rushed brain a much needed break and ignore Carla's provocations. “Come on, we have to finish this and then we have to go the mass.”

Carla rolls her eyes but sits up, adjusting her slightly see-through t-shirt on her stomach. “Sure. Give me your present next? I already gave you multiple, you know.”

The uneasiness creeps from the back of Samuel's brain to the center stage of his thoughts, and unfortunately right into his mouth. “Uh, it's nothing special,” he fumbles, nervously juggling with the little box in his hands – right, left, right. “I know you've probably gotten-”

“You suck at this,” Carla tilts her head impatiently, a smile (hopefully affectionate) curling her lips as she snatches the present wrapped in reindeer-printed paper.

“It's really stupid, but I hope you like i-” Samuel mutters nervously, watching Carla carefully slide her nail under the tape so that she doesn't have to tear the Rudolph faces. “It's-”

“Samuel, you need to learn when to shut up,” Carla lifts her head for a second to shoot him an annoyed glance. “Right now is an opportunity to practice.”

“Right,” Samel huffs lowly, his gaze landing on his entwined hands, fingernails nervously digging into his skin. He can't _speak_ and he can't look at Carla, so he devotes himself to a momentary pleasure in light self-harm. Because seriously, what was he thinking?

Unfortunately, Samuel is not a patient person, so he can't make it through two more seconds of silence and blindness. Hesitantly, he begins to look up.

Carla's chewing on her lip, which is as much as he can see, because her eyelids are hiding the emotion in her eyes, her head bowed down and staring at the little heart locket. It's already open in her palm, which doesn't help Samuel's _real_ heart's alarming rate.

“It's nothing special, the drawing, I'm not that good and I had to cut the paper super small so that it would fit into the heart so it was hard to-”

“Shut up now,” Carla says, not moving an inch. “Samuel, you're _unbelievable_.”

Something in her voice makes his quickening breath calm down, or more precisely, _stop_. She lifts her head and he sees her eyes vibrant and striking and welled with tears, teeth still scraping her bottom lip. She speaks after a second or so. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” Samuel murmurs, now instead of sticking his nails into his own meat, finding solace in playing with a piece of wrapping paper from the floor. “I mean, the gold would've been better I guess, but silver's-” _Cheaper._

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” Carla groans, immediately followed by a shaky, teary hiccup. “It's- I love you.”

It's clear even to Samuel now that she doesn't much care about the metal's higher chance of corroding. Finally, the message to shut up has reached his brain, albeit _way_ too late. As if to make up for it, he gets an almost reflexive order to stretch out his arms and pull Carla, who has a single tear falling down her cheek, into a tight embrace. “I love you too.”

Carla sniffles into his shoulder. “I feel like nothing I could say or do could really explain how I feel,” she gets out, then wipes her face against his t-shirt and pushes herself up from his shoulder. “I love you,” she murmurs, lips already brushing his. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

¤

The elation Carla's reception has caused makes Samuel feel like he's floating on a pink cloud – and like he'll be floating on it for quite some time, too. He doesn't care in the slightest when they're unsurprisingly late for the mass. Carla doesn't seem to be bothered either, opening the locket and staring at the tiny coloured pencil drawing, golden locks and rubicund cheeks not giving justice to the real beauty. Each time, she also turns the heart around and slides the pad of her thumb over the carved letters: _from Samuel. I love you._

With the both of them occupied by an entirely different kind of paradisaic thoughts, they almost miss the wafers. (Samuel rates them _bland_.)

It's on their way back home: Samuel's hand slips out of Carla's to find the keys to the house door, when she suddenly stops and smacks her forehead. “Jesus. Stay here. Give me the keys.”

She sounds alarmed, which makes warning bells go off in _his_ head. “Why?”

“Just give me the keys. I'll be back in thirty seconds.”

“Do you wanna rob me?” Samuel tries to joke.

“Please. Trust me,” Carla sabotages his effort at brigtening the atmosphere with her big eyes overflowing with sincerity.

He sighs and hands her the keys. “If you lock me out, I'll climb up to the balcony.”

“I won't. Count to thirty.”

She's back at fifty-seven, cheeks flushed from sprinting up the stairs. “There you go,” she breathes out rapidly, pecking his lips. “Merry Christmas. It's a bit embarrassing considering what you gave me, but I guess our upbringing just shows in some way.”

The package is small, and he toys with the idea that she got him a chain or something, but the box is too big for that. He settles on a watch, which makes his stomach clench at the price. When he makes it through the silver and opens the box, he's not nearly mentally prepared to estimate how expensive that thing will be.

_Shit._

He blinks. Once, twice. Carla tugs on the sleeve of his jacket, but he can't momentarily speak.

“I know that it's not emotional or heartfelt and I'm so sorry I didn't put in more thought, but I guess I'm used to-”

“When he finally opens his mouth, it's to release a pent-up, hysterical, high-pitched laugh. “You bought me a _car_?”

“Yeah, and it's so basic and so impersonal, but I though we could take a roadtrip to the beach,” Carla mumbles hastily, eyes flicking between him and something _behind_ him, which, Samuel's half-functioning brain registers, is probably the car parked on the edge of the pavement. “You know, we did that once when I was little, we had a whole caravan and all, with Guzmán and Marina and it was like the only good family vacation where my parents didn't fight and everyone was happy and not leaving halfway though because of business, so I guess that could-”

Carla's nervous rambling disintegrates into the swirling mess of his thoughts. He doesn't even hear her anymore, just feels her presence somehow. “You got me a _car_ ,” he repeats numbly. “A _car._ ”

“Yeah, and if you don't like it, I mean you could pick a different one at the salon and-”

“You're not getting it,” Samuel snaps out a little because of her ridiculous nonsense. “That's not the problem. You got me a _car_. That's like twenty-five thousand or something.”

Carla licks her lips as he focuses on her, and they both understand that this estimate shouldn't be discussed further. “It's just money, Samuel,” is her utterly idiotic response.

“It's a _lot_ of money,” he corrects her, eyes wide. Her hand is reassurringly resting on his forearm, except it's not really calming him down. “I can't let you buy me a car.”

“It's gonna be half-mine anyway,” Carla shrugs petulantly. “Probably _more_ mine. It's one of those presents I really bought for myself, and just give them to you to look good.”

“That's not-”

“You could maybe look at it before you dismiss it entirely,” Carla lifts her eyebrow slightly, reaches for the key in his fallen hand and presses the unlock button. “I like it.”

 _Yeah._ What's not to like about an Audi.

Samuel opens his mouth for further protests, but he's silenced by Carla's lips. “Tell me you like it,” she pouts. “We can fight about it tomorrow.”

“Car-”

“Do you like it?”

He exhales heavily. “Yeah. Obviously. But-”

“Then that's all that matters,” Carla locks eyes with him uncompromisingly, hair fiercely floating around her head in the wind. “Now practice the shutting up thing and _show_ me how much you like it.”

¤

They wake up at one-thirty and neither can feel bad. While Samuel's putting the new pan which doesn't shred black lumps into his pancake batter to use, Carla's sitting on the kitchen counter and eating tangerines instead of cutting them so they could put them on top.

“What are we gonna do today?”

“I don't know,” Samuel flips a pancake in the air and thanks all his gods when it lands on the pan. Carla makes a vaguely impressed sound. “What do you wanna do?”

“I don't know, but it's nice out,” she pops another crescent into her mouth. “I feel like going into the sun. Plus, we could drive somewhere and test out your new _pet_.”

That makes him laugh. “Wow. I knew rich people were emotionally stunted, but not to this extent.”

“Good you're teaching me all about emotions,” Carla hops off the counter and takes a singel step to press herself on his back. “It smells amazing. Maybe it was just your lacking equipment that made you suck.”

Samuel huffs something intelligibly offended and transfers the pancake onto a plate. “You're changing the topic. Where would we even drive?”

“I don't know. Don't you have a romantic outlook you use to pick up girls?”

He snorts. “Yeah. Cause that's just me, the Casanova.”

“What a disgrace.”

“Huh,” Samuel ladles the last normal-sized pancake on the pan. “I'm sorry I don't fit your standards.”

“I like that you don't fit my standards,” Carla murmurs lowly into the back of his neck, giving him goosebumps. “It's my favourite thing about you.”

Samuel doesn't know what to answer, so he focuses on the pancake, watching for any signs of browning on the edges or bubbles. Half a minute passes and he can flip it – and with the spin, the gears in his brain seem to spin too. “Do you wanna go ice-skating?” he blurts.

He feels Carla's chuckle vibrate in her chest where she's to his back. “Exactly. Polo sucked so bad that he fractured his wrist once. And then we never went again.”

“But you know how to skate?” Samuel interrupts her too quickly and too eagerly, but Carla doesn't seem thrown off by either – her mention or his desire to quickly move on. (It's not that he wouldn't want to talk about it, not _exactly_ – but it's the day after Christmas, and they're making pancakes, sharing one set of pajamas. He doesn't want to lose that moment.)

“Yeah. We had an elective in third grade – skating or normal P.E. in the winter. I may have wanted to be an ice dancer.”

“I don't know if I'll be able to match your skills, then,” he responds to her grin with his own mirror reflection of it. “Your career didn't last, unfortunately.”

“No. I found out they woke up at four-thirty to go train before school and that was the deal-breaker.”

“I was actually one of those obnoxious morning kids. Woke up at five naturally and stuff.”

“That unfortunately didn't hold, either.”

“Oh come on. Like you'd want me to wake you up at five in the morning,” he points out correctly.

Carla huffs a commending laugh, taking a dry pancake from the pile despite his (unconvincing) strict look. “We're closer to going to sleep at five than waking up then.”

“For good purposes,” Samuel shrugs nonchalantly and steals a bite of her pancake.

¤

The park that puts out an outdoor rink every winter is walking distance and he doesn't let Carla convince him to drive the ten minutes on foot. Her complaints about the sport bag being heavy (“I'm carrying one pair of skates, unless you wanna borrow Nano's, I think I can handle it”), or the cold weather (“You said it was nice out,”) aren't met with success. Samuel enjoys a well-deserved victory. Carla doesn't seem to mind in the end, coming up with the idea that she'll tan her face in the freezing December sun, and Samuel's not about to argue. It's good enough for him to have Carla's hand in his and walk with her through the streets.

She likes it, too.

Normality is enthralling.

He's a good boyfriend and ties her skates. Carla giggles at his gentlemanly stumble down the stairs and then almost trips herself.

The first time at an ice-rink after a while is always a bit nerveracking, and they're both palpably tense for the first two laps – fortunately, hand in hand, everything comes easier. Soon, Samuel is reminded of the satisfaction effortless gliding provides, and it's a ton better when he's holding onto Carla and not an annoyed ten-year-old Nano teaching him.

“You're not wearing gloves?” she realizes mid-slide, probably catching him staring at her Masha-like mitten with a smirk.

“It's hot,” he shrugs at her furrowed eyebrows.

“You _have to_ wear gloves,” Carla stops them by bracing herself on Samuel's shoulders. She stares straight into his face. “You know, if you don't wear gloves and fall and someone can't stop and you're on the ground in their trajectory, their skate will cut right through your unprotected finger.”

He chuckles at her resolute expression. “What, tips from your third grade teacher?”

“Samuel,” Carla clicks her lips disapprovingly, slapping his arm with her palm, thickly mummified in wool, so it's more like a soft thud. “It's true.”

“It's also hot.”

She rolls her eyes ostentatiously. “Oh, so you can't stand a bit of heat, but living with nine fingers is fine.”

“You're so overdramatic,” he snorts amusedly, going through his pockets to find his polyester gloves. Pretentiously, he slides every finger in. “What wouldn't I do for you.”

“What a sacrifice,” she snickers and takes his hand again. “By the way, the next time we come, you're bringing the thick ski ones. This is next to nothing, your finger would come off anyway.”

Even this dumb childhood trauma imposed on Carla by a primary school teacher weirdly warms Samuel's heart (and his whole body – fuck, this one thin piece of garment causes his entire being to overheat). It's just that Carla _cares_.

He knows it, of course, but these dumb moments show the full extent of it.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Samuel grins and pecks her temple in the middle of their synchronized skate. “Just that you're cute when you're irrational.”

Carla indignantly slaps him in the chest and they almost end up falling as she blocks his way.

The time they really fall is when she shows him an extremely clumsy spin and he wants to add a bit of partnerwork.

¤

They're drinking tea on the couch, Samuel's cup resting on the scholarship application form he's filling out. He feels Carla, knees tucked in and her cup between them, watch him do the extremely entertaining act of copying his health insurance card number.

“What?” he turns his head, having heard a microscopic sigh.

“Nothing,” Carla curls the corner of her lip, eyes warm. “Just that you're being so responsible. It's boring.”

“Carla,” he resists her advances with unsuppressed chuckles as she puts her tea on the coffee table and starts to kiss his neck. And they say _he_ isn't subtle. “This is the last page, just wait for three minutes.”

“I'm bored _now_ ,” Carla whines childishly, making her way to his lips. Honey and vanilla and her rose perfume are making a dangerous raid on his senses. It's taking a toll.

“I know I'm irresistible, but you can wait until I fill in these last ten boxes,” he smiles as she starts to trace her palm down to his stomach. “Practice patience.”

Carla groans annoyedly as he bends down to the coffee table and turns over the page. “You're so annoying.”

“You're so bratty. If you hadn't just done that, I'd already have been done by now.”

He can _feel_ the roll of her eyes. The unmistakable energy of utmost irritation transmits into the air.

“Sure,” she says, tone of voice at her perfect _you didn't_ really _win_ frequency. “I guess I could do something productive too.”

“I'll bring you your laptop, I'm gonna go put these away,” Samuel fetches the empty mugs from the table as she starts to stand up and picking up a fallen blanket from the floor. She murmurs _thanks_ as he walks into the kitchen and grabs Carla's open laptop from the dining table on the way back.

His eyes flick over the open e-mails automatically – it's just that they're in his exact field of view. His eyes are already traveling to Carla, putting the decorative pillows back on the couch (those things are pretty, but never in their place), when his sight switches back instinctively.

_Your transfer to UCM was approved._

His breath gets stuck in his lungs. He doesn't want to sound too assuming, but he's not a good actor and it's also not like the e-mail title is prone to misinterpretation.

“Carla?”

“Yeah?” she turns around quickly, sensing the shift in his demeanor. “What?”

“What does this mean?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer.

And he doesn't like it at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry for everyone who has to go to the dentist now because of the gift-giving scene. thanks for sticking with me and all your support - comments, votes, messages, everything, ily all <3   
> (i'm not even gonna apologize for the excessive fluff. i think that we've all either accepted that that is what it is, or left. it was not the plan, but when does life ever go accoring to plan? also i didn't even have one.) next chapter is the last one which is pretty cool, i have a bunch of fic ides i can't wait to get to! thanks for following the story the whole time and sorry again for the super slow update.


	10. always

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiii, i'm here after 4577579 centuries and i'm so SO sorry for the wait but i had so much stuff to do for school and not much motivation to write in general so that was a killer combo. but without further ado, here's the last chapter and i'm so sorry again and thank you so much for making it here to the end with me <3 (and your support despite some questionable... lapses). (i also hope this isn't as underwhelming as it feels especally after such a long hiatus uGh im seriously so sorry.)

There's a shouting fight. Despite their history of aggression, this is new. All of their conflicts before were rather one-sided from Carla's side, if there _was_ any shouting. They used to prefer raised voices.

These are, without a doubt, shouts. That's not the only difference, though; before, they actually used to have good _reasons_ to fight.

Call Carla naïve, but she'd actually thought that Samuel would be happy about this turn of events. Of course, there'd be the whole _I don't want you to restrict yourself because of me,_ but-

She didn't correctly predict the extent of it.

“I'm not letting you do this!”

“Like I need your permission to do anything!” Carla screams, voice already coarse. They've been over this twice already and her throat burns with exhaustion while her eyes burn with tears. “I can do whatever I want!”

“But you don't want this, you're only doing it because of me! I won't let you just throw away your life for me!”

“Don't think so highly of yourself, I'd never throw my life away for you!”

Samuel stiffens. Carla freezes, painful flashbacks shooting at her from every corner of _this_ apartment.

Now's not a good time for either of them to speak and point out her error. She stares at the wall behind Samuel and her tear glands are on fire. Nothing's gonna fall down, she's way too shocked for that.

“ _That's_ exactly why I don't want you to do it,” Samuel says, quiterer, deliberately only in allusion, but it racks her right back up nevertheless.

“So, the difference of fifty spots on a college ranking is a bigger issue than betraying my entire family? You didn't have a problem with me doing that for you!”

_Well._

Samuel squares his jaw, but Carla doesn't see it over a hazy cloud of rage and regret. She's not sure about the ratio.

“I have to go for a walk,” she announces instead, doesn't see Samuel, merely a red-tinted silhouette as she strides towards the door haughtily.

The steps are colder than normal, which is when she realizes that she's wearing her slippers. She trips over the stupid plushy bear ear in indignation – _pathetic, cute thing_ – and reaches the house door, finally pressing the handle resolutely.

A cold huff of air immediately hits her. Of course, her sweater isn't appropriate for December weather. She stares outside blankly – already dark, freezing, increasingly windy.

The unsurety outrages her even more. She has no idea what to do now, unable to proceed or come back. So she stands in the doorframe with a sharp pain spreading in her gut.

“Carla.”

Samuel's voice is kind of tender while still being angry. That was most likely not his intention, but it makes Carla's response much more conciliatory than she'd planned. “What?”

“Come back up. It's cold.”

She takes a second before turning to him. He's not apologetic, not really, but he's not being passive-aggressive either. His voice was mostly matter-of-fact. And he's right. She follows him wordlessly up the four flights of stairs.

He opens the door without looking at her and goes straight into the kitchen. Carla puts her palm on the ugly, yellow-ish wood and exhales deeply.

She shouldn't have said that, even though it's true. _Because_ it's true.

“Do you want tea?”

She's not sure how that will help, but Samuel coming out of the kitchen with the kettle already in his hand doesn't give her much choice. “Sure.”

He disappears back to do his little distraction exercise and Carla's still two steps before the door, ticking anxiously between her next moves. She takes a step towards the bedroom door, then reverts, her gaze flicks over the living room. She discards that possibility even before her eyes have gone halfway over the room.

She turns around rapidly and brushes her shoulder against the bathroom doorframe painfully. The pain is dull and stingy at the same time, but at least it distracts her as she splashes cold water on her face. _Fuck._

She stares into the small mirror, her face equal parts pale and reddened because of the temperature shocks. Her eyes radiate remorse.

She shakes her head at herself, almost exhaustedly. The old Carla would've been – not proud, but felt a sense of satisfaction about this. She had been right and she correctly utilized it. She wouldn't be bathing in guilt.

It's amazing what a few months does to a person.

Carla sighs and steps out of the bathroom. Her steps towards the kitchen are reluctant, but somehow accepting of the inevitable.

Samuel's back to her, fumbling around with his teas. Carla pulls away one chair from the kitchen table and sits down softly, her eyes studying Samuel's back. His shoulders tensed up a little as he heard her enter.

Then they slouch with an exhale. “I'm so-”

“Samuel-” Carla chooses the most inconvenient moment to fight her words' unwillingness to come out.

He turns around, slightly surprised, that stupid mug in his hand. “There you go,” he clears his throat awkwardly.

Instead of sipping, Carla fidgets with the spoon. It makes a loud clink as she hits the wall of the cup every once in a while. “I'm sorry, too,” she finally says, forcing herself to look at him. He's standing in the middle of the kitchen, like a child who broke a vase and now has no idea what to do. “I shouldn't have said that.”

“You were right, though,” he objects, lifting his head and focusing on Carla. The eye-contact is somehow broken and strong all at once.

It reminds Carla of an altrecation that took place a room away once. It was equal parts vulnerability and courage. Carla's never thought of it this way, but now, looking into Samuel's eyes, solid and shiny, she thinks it was one of the bravest things she's ever done. Made the decision to break. That takes a lot more courage than breaking because you can't go on.

_And it didn't work._

She blinks, her eyes getting watery.

“I'm sorry about what I did to you that winter,” Samuel finally says, eyes still locked with her. His gaze doesn't soften even if she's sure that he can see hers changing. He probably won't get through this if he allows himself a pause, a lapse, something unplanned like comforting her. “It was – cruel. Now that I think about it, I don't understand how I managed to do it when I knew how you felt. Maybe I pushed my feelings aside for the time being, didn't realize how I had felt which is why I could do it. But when I saw you in the police station – all of it hit me. I knew that I was in love with you and did the worst possible thing to you.” He licks his lips. Carla's gripping the mug, her hand cramping. “I know that doesn't excuse it, but it's one of the things I most regret.”

“I forgave you for that a long time ago,” Carla says, voice not squeaky but still way too timid. “But-”

“But that's why I don't want you to waste opportunities to be considerate of me,” he continues. “I- I realized that I was holding you back by the end of last year. That's why I let you go. Even now when I know how the entire thing with Yeray-” he shivers violently “-really was, it's still true.” His tone is still infinitely serious, but Carla sees a flicker in his eyes, a flicker of hurt, of hesitance. “The- What happened- _Us,”_ he decides on with a shake of his head, like words can't quite encompass what he needs to express. Carla knows the feeling. “It was the best thing to happen in my life. But because of that, I don't want you to put _your_ life on hold for me. I don't want you to miss out and then regret it. It'd make me feel even worse.” He bows his head down. “And I don't deserve it.”

Carla swallows heavily, staring into the brown liquid. There's a piece of tea-leaf, or whatever they put in these tea packets, floating around where her spoon disrupts the surface tension. She focuses on its swirls. “You're the best thing that happened to me,” she says to the drink instead of him. “We both know what happened, and we can't change it. But I don't want the past to control our lives anymore.” She lifts her eyes to look at Samuel. “I'm not saying that I don't have doubts or that everything is destined to be forever, but- But you're what makes my life worth living.” He flinches; she drops her gaze just to force herself to go back. She needs all the strength and all the sincerity. “I'm not putting my life on hold for you. You're the one who keeps it going.”

Samuel's shifting his weight from one foot to the other like it will help regain some composure after what she's just spat out at him.

“You don't know how it was in London.” _Now_ he looks at her, almost alarmed. “No, I didn't really do anything. Not even- I think I even stopped trying to make myself feel better. Maybe I'd just accepted that I would feel terrible forever.” Did her voice just break? She masks it with a cough. “I hoped every day that you'd call, even though I was completely sure you wouldn't. It was terrible.”

She swallows heavily, searching the floor for inspiration. “I don't care what college my degree comes from. I don't even give a _shit_ about business,” she chuckles bitterly. “Or, not in that way that I chose to care about it.” She starts to turn her head, then changes her mind. It's just easier to speak to the table. “What I care about is _you_. And being happy. And apparently, they come as a package deal,” she almost snorts, but then finally looks at Samuel still in his weird frozen pose in the middle of the living room. “We want to be together, right?” She has to nod for herself, Samuel still reserving his movements to the minimum. “Why fight it?”

He's been quiet for too long, and Carla's not a patient person. She gets up and walks over to Samuel, who's staring through her, not at her. “I don't wanna fight,” she says, taking his hand in hers.

Samuel sighs but moves himself closer to her, almost microscopically. It's still enough for their sides to brush. “Me neither,” he finally manages lowly, eyes still at the floor. “But it's just – I don't want you to turn down something because of me and then regret it.”

“I hate London. It's rainy and cold and the metro is a fucking labyrinth covered in dirt.”

“I thought you grew to like the metro,” Samuel hums lowly, a slight tint of humour, into her hair.

“Please,” Carla exhales, allowing herself to relax as she presses herself into his chest slowly and he embarces her. “We both know why I bought that car. I'm done with public transport.”

Shit. A horrible mistake, a complete undermining of her strategy.

Samuel pulls her closer after a split-second of stiffness. “I'm sorry,” he says simply.

Carla's not sure for what exactly, now, but that doesn't matter.

¤

Even though they've technically made up, the air in their bedroom seems tense and heavier than normal. Carla sighs to herself and slips under the covers, waiting for Samuel to come out of the shower. Considering how the atmosphere is bound to sink even worse once he enters the room, maybe she should rather pretend to be asleep.

Before she can decide on this subtle cowardice, the bathroom door opens and Samuel enters the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his hips. He takes an awkward step into the room, gaze only flicking to Carla, then turning on his heel to go to the closet. “I'm – we're okay, right?” he asks after searching in it for what feels like an eternity. Seriously, it's like he's trying to reorganize his entire closet Marie-Kondo-style. But then again, it's probably just easier to speak to the t-shirts.

“Yeah,” Carla would like to sigh, but she doesn't. Instead, she speaks plainly, matter-of-factly. “Everything's fine.”

“Carla,” Samuel's not as considerate, not limiting his vocal responses; the exhale he lets out is all heavy, and his tone reflects that. “Of course it'd be absolutely amazing if we could be together all the time. I mean,” he rushes his hand up to his forehead, turning around and then reverting. “Not all the time. But you know, not long-distance-”

Now Carla allows herself to sigh, merely because she's annoyed and needs to make that clear.

“But I just- I don't know. I _can_ wait for you,” he mumbles, volume and confidence decreasing with each word. “I mean-”

“Samuel,” Carla says now with her patience exhausted, pushes the covers aside and with three resolute steps makes her way to Samuel. (The closet is as messy as ever.) “Stop with this fucking selfless act.”

He turns around swiftly, eyes widened.

“We both know what you really want,” Carla lowers her voice and smirks suggestively, her hand tracing the towel around Samuel's torso. She begins to unwrap it. “Doesn't it sound good, having this every day?” she asks, almost matter-of-factly, as she casually palms him, eyes deliberately pointed down. “Unless,” she strokes, Samuel's muscles tense up and she smiles for herself, “You don't mind that we'll only get to _see each other_ ,” he breathes out heavily, “Once a month.”

When his chest heaves and it seems that he wants to make a last effort to say something, Carla drops to her knees, gives him her best faux-innocent smile, batting her eyelashes, and knows that she's won. “I mean, if you don't want me here, I can just move to London.”

By the end of the night, he's definitely ninety-nine percent sold. Carla is contently curled up with his hand resting over her stomach, cheeks mildly flushed and the utmost relaxation provoked by the nicest kind of absolute exhaustion spreading across her body, and has one last thought before dozing off: _some things never change._

Except she's using her powers for the greater good now.

“I love you,” Samuel mumbles into the back of her neck. She'd thought he was already asleep.

She murmurs some incoherent response, halfway into a deep slumber.

¤

The New Year's party will take place at Ander's. Carla isn't sure how happy she'd be with partying at her principal's house, but hey. That's not _her_ problem. And as Samuel explained and she'd observed when spending time with the Las Encinas friend group, Guzmán's parents' house (getting a divorce). Rebeka's mother's lair (potentially dangerous for Samuel), Omar's parents' condo (Muslim, duh) or Samuel's apartment (paper thin walls and angry neighbours) are all an even worse option for a New Year's party.

They could go to a club, but nobody was too keen on finding a suitable one and... yeah. So, Carla just hopes Samuel won't get expelled for real this time. She's not sure how much she'd enjoy dating a chronic high-school student.

Fortunately, Azucena is apparently on some ski trip with some of her friends, and Ander assures her that his mother is completely fine with them coming.

It's not like six people can make for an obnoxiously destructive party.

Or, that's what Carla thinks. But when they arrive at Ander's, shortly after nine (they were supposed to be there earlier, but Carla's black dress is tight in all the right areas, she kind of tested it a little and – yes, it passed). Anyway, it's three hours until midnight and Guzmán is literally _hammered_.

“Samu! Carla! The aritroscatic-” hiccup, -”Aricro- static- tractic- um- couple has arrived!”

Carla raises her eybrow slightly as Guzmán eagerly kisses her on both cheeks, then stifles a giggle when he ceremoniously takes Samuel's hand and shakes it while maintaining serious eye-contact. “The company are not here in the _salon_ , shall I take you on a tour of the-” furrow, features sharpened by concentration instantly softened and sunny as he finds the word, “Muñoz estate?”

“Jesus,” Carla laughs after exchanging half-amused, half-trepidatious looks with Samuel. “I mean, sure, but what about the host?”

“Bo-ring,” Guzmán throws his hands up theatrically into the air, completing the picture with a suggestive mixture of a snort and a groan. “They're literally _playing videogames_ on New Year's, I mean how lame.”

Carla's inclined to agree with that, but Samuel next to her doesn't seem on board with Guzmán's intention to go to the terrace and _talk about life_. That might be reasonable, since Guzmán could fall off, and Carla's still a little uneasy. The owner of this house has already had to deal with a multitude of dead students-

“Yeah, we'll just say hi,” she smiles at Guzmán, Samuel's not-so-secretly pleading look persuading her. “Come with us, no? Isn't it boring to be alone here?”

“But now I'm not alone, I'm with you, my friends!” Guzmán quips surprisingly swiftly, ruining it a little as he stumbles and almost falls on Carla instead of giving her a side-hug. “Come dance! Do you want a drink, mylady?”

“Come on, we can dance up the stairs,” Carla coerces Guzmán into following her. Samuel's already halfway up the flight, steam practically coming out of his ears. _Great._ So much about relax and a drama-free atmosphere.

Fortunately, Guzmán is delighted with her idiotic idea. Maybe it takes them three times as long to reach upstairs, but Carla's laughing loudly by that point. It must be just the fumes of the alcohol, she hasn't drunk anything yet – but she's completely forgotten how Guzmán came close to tripping and falling down two meters.

She doesn't stay carefree for long. In the room upstairs, Ander, Omar and Rebeka also seem to be violently taken out of a pleasant care-free PS4 session. Samuel's speaking quietly, but maybe that only adds to the urgency. “Are you serious? Why did you let him start drinking so early, and totally alone on top of that? He's completely unhinged and it's not even fucking _bedtime_!?”

“Jesus, sorry we didn't realize he left for a while,” Rebeka rolls her eyes at him. Ander and Omar are awkwardly avoiding the altrecation and lowly hushing something while staring at the goround. “Jeez, it's New Year's, it's not like anyone's here to hold back.”

“Fuck, wasn't _that_ the reason we did this instead of going all out? Because we know that the divorce is making him spiral, maybe even worse that in the summer? It's not that hard to keep it moderate at least at the start, for fuck's sake!” Samuel whisper-screams.

Rebeka doesn't buy it. “If you remember, he wasn't the only one to go off the rails during the summer.”

Samuel squares his jaw. “One more reason. I _know_ how he is. Sorry for spoiling your fun by trying to keep him in check,” he hisses, then turns around. Ignores Carla, who's half-eavesdropping. “Come on, Guzmán,” he yells jovially, completely changing his tone, picking his friend up from a couch. “Let's go out in the garden, fresh air will do you good! We can dance _there_!”

“Jesus, it's not like _he_ wasn't the one to come two hours late,” Rebeka murmurs, voice laced with something Carla interprets as guilt. That doesn't stop her, though.

“So it has to be Samuel, doing the babysitter the entire time?”

Rebeka lifts her eyes rapidly. “Hey, blondie,” she utters. “Nice dress.”

Rebeka's wearing sweatpants. Carla doesn't let her throw her off. “I know,” she nods sharply. “You also know that Samuel is just being a good friend. He has a good reason to be concerned about Guzmán. Was this,” her gaze flickers to the TV, some war-soundtrack playing in the background, “seriously more important than at least checking every once in a while on the guy you know is struggling?”

“What would you know, you haven't even been here,” Rebeka points out flatly. “You have no idea how _they-_ ” deliberate, “-were during the summer.”

“Carla,” Ander finally leaves the safe corner where he and Omar have taken asylum. “Rebe. Please.”

“Yeah, guys,” Omar puts his hand on Ander's shoulder. “We're really sorry about losing track of Guzmán. But can we not fight tonight? Please? It's not like anything terrible happened- yet,” he corrects himself quickly under Carla's cutting stare.

Carla hears Rebeka's voice firyt before she cuts the stubborn staring at the ground. “They're right. It's New Year's, for fuck's sake. Peace?”

An extended hand enters Carla's field of vision. “Sure,” she rolls her eyes, but just a little. “Are you seriously spending New Year's by playing playstation?”

“You wouldn't last thirty seconds, so cut the condescension,” Omar's voice echoes behind her with a careful joke. Carla's eyebrow springs up a mile high.

“Hand me the remote,” she demands.

“It's called a gamepad,” Ander whispers in her ear, pressing the dumb console in her hand.

¤

When a slightly more drunk Samuel and a slightly sobered-up Guzmán come back, Carla's not dying at such an alarmingly fast rate. Samuel chuckles at the sight of her, cross-legged in front of the TV and face strained by concentration, fingers cramping because of the grip. “Hey,” he pecks the top of her head.

She turns at him indignantly. “What if you'd just made me lose,” she protests.

Samuel's eyes flicker brightly. “Well, I can see on the TV that you're already dead, so-”

His soft grin makes her smile, too. “Forget it, you're right. I'm totally hopeless,” she drops the damned gamepad and instead devotes herself to going through Samuel's curls. Her fingers are much more coordinated in that activity. “Everything good?” she whispers, pressing her forehead to Samuel's and breathing in his scent.

“Yeah,” he affirms, bringing a hand to cup her cheek and idly brushing his thumb over her cheekbone. “And hey, it's fine. I'll accept that you're a completely useless gamer.”

Carla wants to protest indignantly, but before she even cracks an eye open, she feels Samuel's lips softly pressing against hers.

“Jesus, go get a room,” Ander's voice strikes through the feeling of bliss. “Or at least not in front of the TV. I can't see.”

There's laughter and a few high fives as Carla and Samuel break apart with smiles on their faces and clear out the field.

¤

It's six minutes after eleven when even the gaming squad decides that the celebration should get going. Rebeka, Ander and Omar join the now sufficiently drunk dance party downstairs – Guzmán is now the most levelheaded out of the three attendants, but that might also not be because of alcohol levels, but because he's the only one not grinding on someone which sufficiently worsens the dizziness.

Carla's cheeks are flushed, some horrible 2000's dance music is blasting from the JBL loudspeakers, Samuel's hands are gripping her hips and she's high on elation. There's no other pressure than the blood in her ears and the heavy, hot air setting down and pulsing around her head.

“Let's go on the terrace,” she proposes, words heavy, head hot, limbs cold. Samuel and her are both definitely brought back to their senses a bit when the cold air hits them.

“Uh,” he starts, elbows resting on the bannister, hands over Carla's to warm hers up. She's pressed between the railing and his body, weirdly freezing and overheating at once. “Maybe we should tone it down with the PDA in front of our friends.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Carla agrees lazily, staring into the nothing of Madrid's dark sky. There's no starts to be seen because of the smog, so it mostly is an endless void. “But you know,” she starts to trun around, mind all hazy and Samuel blurry and mostly in the dark and beautiful and hers, hers from now on forever because she's coming back, she's coming back home, “There's noone here.”

He probably wouldn't have hoisted her up on the bannister because even if this is the first floor, falling still wouldn't be ideal, but drunk Samuel is a bit less careful than normal, so Carla can wrap her legs around his hips and moan into his mouth when she's all set. All in all, she likes the more relaxed version of Samuel. She likes the more relaxed version of herself, too, if she comes to think about it.

But maybe this more relaxed version of Carla is now the usual version, and maybe she doesn't need to induce it by alcohol. The realization makes her head spin, and she's suddenly hyper-aware of how she is pretty high up from the ground if she thinks about it, but it's Samuel keeping her from falling down.

He'd never let her fall.

“Fucking god, you two are unbelievable,” she feels how the glass door opens and the trace of warmth coming from inside. “I know this is probably more interesting, but the countdown's in eight minutes and we can't find the opener.”

“Since when do you need an opener for champagne,” Samuel shakes his head in confusion, and Carla blinks twice in quick succession. _Right._

Guzmán, obviously as taken aback by this gentle reminder, turns back around to deliver the news to their very badly functioning group of friends. Samuel helps Carla down from the bannister – his eyes have a glint of something inexpressible - and smiles at her gently: “Let's go?”

She entwines their fingers and turns her head, returning the look of _love_. “Yeah.”

Rebeka and Omar ale laughing loudly by the kitchen table, somehow incapable of preparing six cups of grapes by counts of twelve. Carla joins them, realizing mid-fit of giggles that it isn't that easy – seriously, why are these things so small and slippery – and it's only when a slightly hysterical Guzmán tells them that they have thirty seconds when the process becomes somewhat effective.

Carla's standing up with two grape cups, one for herself and one for Samuel. Her gaze lands on the latter – but he's already looking at her, too, his eyes slightly glassy and full of adoration – not adoration, _love_ – and the most content smile curling his lips.

“Guys, guys, it's starting,” an agitated Guzmán recounts his grapes (fair point), staring at the TV. Carla hands Samuel his and smiles so wide that her lips might just tear – but if she doesn't, her _heart_ will burst.

“Now!” Guzmán yells, as if the TV isn't a clear enough telltale.

Now comes the quest – Carla's feeling way too much sentimental for a hamster-style eating contest, and watching Samuel carefully observe Guzmán and the TV, trying very carefully to sync his eating perfectly with the strokes of the clock doesn't help her situation. She starts laughing the third grape in, and the skin might seriously come out her nose.

“Carla!” Samuel scolds her, mouth full of fruit, eyes wide and throat gulping with attempts to swallow. Carla quickly pushes another grape into her mouth and bites, a task so complicated because of her uncontrollable giggles. It's not helping that mostly everyone is starting to have trouble now, so stifled chuckles take over the entire room.

“Twelve,” Guzmán announces thatrically, his cheeks somehow completely hollow unlike Carla's. She's pretty sure she looks like someone's inflated two balloons in her mouth, one on each side. Grapes aren't even that voluminous, for fuck's sake.

But now everyone's clapping and cheering, Samuel's pulling her close with a slightly mocking yet tender smirk. “Happy New Year,” he whispers, which is just unnecessary considering how everyone's shrieking and shouting, but Carla looks into his eyes and now it really _is_ only their moment.

“I love you,” she says before he can. “Happy New Year.”

The American kissing tradition is way more pleasant than choking on grapes. Carla could cry with happiness.

“I love you,” Samuel mumbles into it and then breaks the kiss, probably remembering the earlier PDA discussion. Maybe that should be their first resolution.

However, when Carla looks around, it seems that they're the only ones even taking the presence of other people into consideration. Ander and Omar are doing something very uncharacteristically graphic, and Guzmán and Rebeka-

“Jesus,” Carla tugs on Samuel's sleeve. His mouth is slighly agape. “They probably just didn't want to be the only ones in the room not kissing anyone.”

She thinks her own thing, though. Rebeka and Guzmán take off suspiciously early, and somehow together (since when does Rebeka have to wait for someone else to leave to follow his suit?) and she'd be lying if she said that the cho- _Rebe_ potentially finding someone doesn't majorly improve her tolerance of the girl.

They take off shortly after the suspicious duo, and now they're strolling through the streets of Madrid, fireworks and quiet echoes of laughter reaching them indistinctly. Carla leans into Samuel's stride, the atmosphere strangely serene for what is the biggest drunkfest of the year.

But the wind is gentle, the pavements mostly empty and the lamps give out soft, orange light.

 _Samuel_ is by her side, and he's a better guide and better at lighting up the dark than anyone, anything else.

With him, she'll never get lost. He'll guide her wherever she needs to go.

They'll guide each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so we're here!!! i'd like to thank you all so much for reading until the end, this fic was not supposed to get this long at all (it just started from me wanting to write an annoyed guzmán getting samuel that ticket haha) but here we are and i hope you enjoyed the jOuRneY lmao. this is definitely my longest continuous carmuel work so thanks for everyone who was here for it <3 i love you guys all so much and all of your support and kindness has really pushed me to finish this <3 thank you for all the kudos and comments, special shoutout to my regular commenters i love you guys so so much <3 (and an extra special shoutout to mckayla for commenting on every single chapter <3 :')) thank youuu sm it means the world)  
> anyways. this is entirely too cheesy so bye and i'll see you with whatever i decide to write next <3  
> (oh also another shoutout to rae for withstanding my very frequent "this sucks" breakdowns love you even though you're not here ok bye)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, hope you liked it <3  
> tumblr: [loquenomedices](https://loquenomedices.tumblr.com/) (aka constant carmuel reblogs and self-made elite moodboards, my new obsession. ask me a question or whatever!)


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